Pump Surging....

[BadPump]

Hey Everyone,

I went outside to my MasterSpa LS700. I hit the button to turn on pump 1, but the pump does this weird thing. It surges. When I set its speed to HIGH, it runs in high speed, surges in LOW speed, and goes back to HIGH. It keeps doing this. When the pump surges it draws an incredible amount of power. Any ideas?

Thanks everyone!
-BadPump

[Jacuzzi Jim]

 Usually a pump will surge when the water level is to low, but if it's not doing it in high speed that's kinda strange.    How do you know it's drawing an incredible amount of power, does the meter spin faster?    Weird. 

[Kev B]

 I had a customer just the other day telling me it was surging when in actuality the capacitor was bad and it was humming trying to start, not surging due to low water. Sometimes a relay also gets stuck on the circuit board causing it to try to run on both low and high speed at the same time.

[BadPump]

Humming would be a better description. And I can tell its drawing a lot of power because I can look at my flood lights outside and notice the slightest dimming every time it does this. It will kinda cut off and on, I can watch the lounge seat/cool down and the jets will spit water, stop for a sec, spit water, stop for a sec, until I shut it off. In high speed, it spits water faster, seems to switch to low for a sec (although the topside is reporting it is always in HIGH) and repeat until I shut it off. Thanks for the replies!

-BadPump

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

If so equipped, it could also be a bad centrifugal switch in the back of the motor (#4)

[Kev B]

 The multimeter is my best friend. If there is constant voltage to the high speed, and it is doing that then I would say it is a bad motor. Dr Spa is correct, it could be a switch issue, but the recommendation from me would be to go with new motor or pump complete if there is corrosion around the pump seal and it is old. If you just do the motor, make sure you get a new pump seal and seal plate o-ring.