I have a Saratoga tub that has a spa pack OEM made by Balboa. Rather than buying a replacement from Saratoga and have old (12 year old) technology I decided to go to Balboa Direct and buy one of their "State of the Art" M7 technology. At least it has battery back up memory for the temp setting upon power failure.

I called Balboa Direct and told them what Saratoga Spa pack I had and asked them for the latest technology they had to replace it. They told me to use the 52319-HC unit. I purchased it and the installation went smooth. All of the jet pumps, blower, circulation pump, and light all direct plugged in.

I powered up the unit and after 3 - 5 minuets it shuts down with "DRY" error. Solution in manual is to purge the pumps or make sure water in tub. The manual goes on to say the M7 is new technology that does not use a flow or pressure switch. It has two temp. probes on each end of the heater. Apparently it looks for the difference in the temp in/out of heater and determines if water is flowing.

This tub has a small 570 GPH 24 hr circ. pump that goes from filter to pump inlet then to heater then to ozone jets ports in the tub. The circ pump is working as I can see the ozone bubbles. I took hose off of the heater out end while pumping to make sure I had good flow and pressure. Everything seems OK. Yes I have dip SW3 "on" for 24 hr circ.

I also did an memory reset to factory defaults with the jumper as manual indicates.

I put spa side control in "test" mode where you can see the reading of the "A" and "B" probes. They read the same until heater comes on for about 6 sec and then it goes to "DRY" fault - shutting everything down. I quickly reset the panel and read the probes again where the out probe is a higher temp as I feel it should be with the heat being on even for a short time.

I am wondering if they have a bug in the software for using the 24 hr. circ mode where you use a small 570 GPH 3/4" barb fittings and they are looking for more flow. From looking at their website it appears that the upgrade packs have a large pump (like a jet pump) with 2 1/2" in/out. But I would not think that this size of pump would be a 24 hr circ pump. BTW the 24 hr circ pump has to be the same voltage (120 V) as the Ozone unit.

Here is where I need HELP! Of course I can not talk to Balboa Tech support because I am an "end user" but at the same time I have an Electrical Engineer degree and do understand more than they will give me credit for. But they say it's policy.... but the $700 I just spent means nothing to them. Tried the email support and no response.

Can any of you get thru to Balboa or maybe you are a Balboa support tech? Or better yet you have had the same problem and can tell me what I need to do.

Sorry this is so long but I wanted to give as much details as possible.

Jim

According to my Balboa contact this model will run on a circulation pump with the flow you indicated. Maybe the circ pump is not actually moving enough water.

Thanks Jeff for the reply,

I finally got thru to Balboa support and from the probe test temp they say I do not have enough flow. They say this system requires 25 GPM minimum so if I calculate the 570 GPH/60 = 9.5 GPM on the Laing circ pump.

I just ordered a Waterway Ironmite at 40 GPM so I'll report back after the week end on the results.

Jim