Sundance Cameo.. heater is cycling all the time.

[ghiapilot]

What would cause the heater of my 2006 Sundance Cameo to all the suddon start cycling on and off, anywhere from 2 or 3 seconds to 30 seconds to a couple minutes?  Even at degree below temp it will start doing this.   I dropped the temp and let the water cool to 92 deg, then set to 102 again, cycled on and off when bringing up to temp.  From what I remember it would just stay on constant when heating, and did not click on and off all the time.

All the wiring is tight to the heater and main power in, and the heater Ohm's out around 11 Ohms, so it looks good.... Any Ideas?  Think my Main board is going bad, or would a heater going bad cause this?

Last month when I changed the water the tub went into "----" watchdog when powered back on... after 3 days of trouble shooting,  and new temp sensor the dealer said was the cause(that did not do any good,) I finnaly put a space heater by the main board for a half hour (we were in a 20 deg spell) I was able to get the tub to come on.  (Long story if anyone is having this issue, I could give you some ideas that helped)

[SerjicalStrike]

Check the two large capacitors on the board.  If they are rounded over at the top, they are bad and the board should be replaced (Im assuming it is still under warranty.)

The other issue may be an intermittent problem with the flow switch.  It may be cycling from open to closed because it is giving a bad reading.

[ndabunka]

Sounds like a flow issue. Either a restricted flow or a Flow Switch intermittent error perhaps?  The heater is restricted when the switch contacts register a flow issue.

[dax]

Check the two large capacitors on the board.  If they are rounded over at the top, they are bad and the board should be replaced (Im assuming it is still under warranty.)

Bad caps were the problem with my recent Cameo watchdog error.  Though if that was the problem on his tub, I doubt he'd get it to power up as he describes.

[SerjicalStrike]

Bad caps present a wide array of weird issues.

[ghiapilot]

Thanks for all the feedback!

I got to answers for the price of one! (I hope)

My heater issue was due to a flow issue.  The night before last I turned on the water fall and noticed it took more turns than normal to get it to flow, felt the heater output flow and it was almost nill.  Pulled the filter and flow came back to normal, heater clicked on and stayed!

Must have been such a quick error I was not getting a FLO warning on the display.

While doing this thought, I had powered the tub down, had the watchdog error again when powered up, had to heat my main board up again with a space heater to get the tub to come on.

So........ I hope it is the caps that are causing this, I am an electronic tech by trade and should be able to repair this.

What happens is.....  If I power the tub on it goes to watchdog.
To get around this I pulled one leg of interlock jumper off the sensors plug.  This way when the tub powers on it gets an ILOC error, not the watchdog..... but now I can look at the trouble log and see what was going on.

My heater showed a high temp of 188 deg, causing the watchdog..... Cleared this error and cycled the power.......  High temp will stay the same as the water temp and all is good.

Now I would replace the interlock jumper and the heater would again get a high temp of 188ish deg.

My thought was the heater was causing the issue on the thermister... so I placed a 33K Ohm resister in place of the heater thermister... heat temp shows around 75 deg...   Powered on with jumper in place, heater kicks on... Watchdog.....heater high temp again off 188.  Removed heater power cables... cleared alarm and STILL got the high temp..........

My thinking process is a bad solder joint that due to the cold weather is not making good contact... hence why I put the space heater near to the mother board... and after a half hour and getting the board to around 75 deg the tub will fire up no issues.

Next time I have an issue I will look at the caps are a known issue.  The bad thing is I am just out of my warranty,  so I may spend a couple bucks on some caps before spending   $500+ on the board

[ghiapilot]

The more I think about it the caps sound like a viable cause to my watchdog issue.

When the heater relays close, could cause electrical noise........ that the caps would filter out...causing the computer to see a strange resistance from the thermister....hmmmm

[SerjicalStrike]

Are you the original owner of the tub?

[ghiapilot]

Yes I am the original owner, I bought it new, as a 'factory' blem.  Why do you ask?

[SerjicalStrike]

I figured it would be under warranty.

[ghiapilot]

I wish!  Because it was a blem, they only gave us a three year warranty.

[me2rick]

I had the same problem, I replaced 5 capacitors ( the board was not on warranty anymore ) and work just fine after the repair.  One big capacitor had a leak.  it cost me $6.00 instead of $650 for a new board.