Pump runs constantly

[SurgTec]

Greetings one and all.  I own a Marquis Quest Spa - I've had it since Feb. 2006.  I just changed the water (2nd time since delivery).  Drain and refill were uneventful.  I reset the breaker, the pump came on and the heater started heating - no problems.  Spa was up to temp around 11 last evening.  Today I tested the chemistry, added shock and placed my "spa frog" cartridges in line.  All seemed fine until this evening when spa came on for its evening filtration cycle (set for 1 hour / 2 times per day).  It kept on running, and running and running.  I checked all the "settings" - the settings are confirmed as: "St" as standard for heating, "1F" for one hour filtration, "2C" for twice per day, and "1H" for one hour clean up after use.  The air temperature is more than warm enough to maintain the spa temp (I live in FL) and when I checked the spa temp - it is actually over my set temp of 102.  I didn't know what else to do this evening - so I flipped the breaker off.  Any suggestions?  Thanks in advance for any suggestion / solutions!

[glastron]

Ya know my marquis seems to do that once in awhile also I check the temp all is good same settings as u so im starting to wonder if theres a bug in the system.Gonna start monitering and documenting times in the morn.Hey also have u been able to take apart a cartridge and replace with the tabs?doing that now on my first set of tabs seems to be more economical so far.xcuse the spellin lazy tonite

[MarKee]

Your Marquis will come on to get a temperature reading and purge the plumbing every half hour for 1-2 minutes.  Remember:  if you try and turn it off or hit any of the buttons on the control, the control thinks you have been using the spa and will initiate a SmartClean cycle that will make it go through a clean up cycle.  If it is bothering you that the spa is coming on every half hour to get a temp. reading you can place the spa into economy mode where it will only come on during a programmed filter cycle.  There is no bug in the system.

[SurgTec]

Markee - I understand about the hourly pump run to check temperature.  What was happening yesterday was the pump came on for a clean up cycle, then kept running into the filtration time (timing of my use of the spa - then the scheduled filtration time) and then just kept on running and running and running - I'm talking several HOURS - and I confirmed that my settings were as I mentioned above.  

I flipped the circuit breaker finally and let it "sit" overnight.  This morning I reset the breaker and it came on to 'survey' the temperature - approx. 2 mins.  BTW - it "held" at 102 degrees all night with NO POWER!  Approx. 2 minutes later it came on for a filtration cycle - and ran for 1 hour.  So far this morning it seems to be fine.  Could the motor, timer, control circuit (whatever) have overheated?  I'll keep an eye on it today and update this post as needed.

RE: the frog cartridges - I don't try to open them and refill - not interested in that level of economizing - and I usually get a month on one Bromine cartridge anyway.  

[Vinny]

This is no reflection on Marquis ...

ALL electronics are affected by power fluctuations reguardless of what it's in! As the world becomes more "computerized" you're going to see this more and more. Computerized things work on voltages of 0 / 5 volts (represents off/on) at high speeds (60 hertz (wall AC) is 60 times a second) and if it doesn't turn fully on (5 Volts) the chip freaks out. High powered computers work on 0/3 volts ... even bigger problems.

Turning the breaker off for 15 minutes will usually reset the electronics. In some expensive electronic gear - you might even need to pull all internal batteries (I've done this about a dozen times - I hate those things).

Don't get me wrong - I like having a digital display and pushing a button to raise or lower temps but in the days of relays and switches these things never happened ... of course there were other glitches!

[Altazi]

Did the control unit still appear to function properly, i.e., displayed information changed when you pressed the buttons, etc., or did it just lock-up?

Being an electronic design engineer, I see this sort of thing all of the time.  There are a number of possible causes.

It is often the result of the electronics companies trying to build things as absolutely cheaply as possible - literally fretting over pennies.  Circuitry can be designed to withstand reasonable variations in the supply voltage, and power spikes can be mitigated - but it might add $0.50, so forget it.  You know, like the appliance clock that loses its time on a brief power glitch - all they need is a back-up battery or a reasonably large capacitor.  Oh, no!  Too expensive!

Even the best circuitry can still be "upset" by the nasty EMI resulting from relays switching or motors starting, etc.  Most modern microcontrollers include a feature called a "watchdog timer", something that must be continually refreshed or it will force a total restart of the program execution.  If the controller "locks-up", the watchdog timer would force a restart and things would keep on working OK.  I don't know if the spa control programmer wrote his code to use the watchdog timer, but he certainly SHOULD have.

It could be that the control is operating properly, but some external input from a sensor is loosely connected or disconnected, and the controller is getting "confused".

It is also possible that it is just a plain, old bug in the firmware.

Finally, the controller could be doing just what it is supposed to do, and the user just doesn't understand.

There are many reasons that things can be screwed up, and all of them are preventable.  If anyone wants more details, just let me know.

I hate cheap crap!

Regards,

Altazi

[SurgTec]

Whether it was 'operator error', cheap circuitry, a power spike, or a 'gremlin' - so far today the system is funtioning as programmed.  For what it is worth - the rest of the control panel was functioning normally last evening.  All I can think to 'chalk it up to' is the circuitry got over heated or slightly damp during my recent water change / reheat.  All's well that ends well - and thanks to all who posted suggestions!

[Vinny]

Being an electronic design engineer, I see this sort of thing all of the time.  There are a number of possible causes.


Regards,

Altazi

So it's your freakin' fault that I am busy!

Actually, I was heading to an EE degree before life took over ... I was leaning toward the troubleshooting end though.

Repairing medical equipment I see glitches all the time. I even have a device that gives an erroneous error code - I love that - Turn it off, wait 30 seconds, turn it back on and it works perfectly!

[SurgTec]

   I use computers enough to always try the "reboot" option when I am having a "glitch".  It is reassuring that this is an accecptable method of 'clearing' faults!

[hot tub Frank]

sometimes it is nice not to have all this options.
i do have not cycle time on my old tub. And it still works greate

[Altazi]

Don't blame ME for cheap-crap products!  I won't be a part of them.

Years ago, I worked for a company that made industrial controls.  I was hired to re-design an utter disaster of a product.  I completed the basic system design, and then recommended that we add about 30% additional components whose sole purpose was arc-supression, transient-clamping, and EMI-resistance.  The company president vetoed my request, saying that it would increase the cost too much.  Against my recommendation, he put the unit into production.  When the units got out into the field, we received numerous reports of system failures.  We had a high-level meeting to discuss this mess, and I literally told the president, "I TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN!"  He said that he didn't believe me.  WTF???  Well, he sure as sh*t believed me after hundreds of units were shipped back to have the components HAND-ADDED to each unit.  Talk about expensive!  I got to add the protective components to my design, and the product worked like a charm - as I had originally intended.  You could take an ESD gun (talk about a cool item!) and zap the inputs and outputs directly with 25,000V, and the product kept on running.  At worst, you might force an occasional system reset, but it automatically restarted and kept going like nothing had happened.

I came up with one of my favorite sayings after seeing this debacle:

"It doesn't matter how cheap it is, if it doesn't work!"

I also designed a number of medical products for another company - no problems, this time.  I had free reign to do what I wanted, and got to design every aspect of the product - mostly because senior management had no clue about product design.  The company realized that the last thing they needed was a bunch of product returns and grief with the FDA. . .

Unfortunately, the managment didn't realize that this kind of engineering capability should also command commensurate compensation.  When they didn't come through, I skipped out.

Perhaps this background explains why I care about the spa innards so much.  I don't own anything that I don't understand in detail - and the spa will be no different.

Regards,

Altazi