wired up hot tub last night, started and primed heater came on for a few seconds and tripped the breaker, error message display "dr" heater dry, notice that some of the jets were not working properly, cause was frozen water in lines and tub was shipped with water in lines and sat out in the cold for a couple days...checked everything over and tried to start back up but the heater light wont turn on...is the heater fried?? what can I do to check the heater element or the circuit board??

Infinity Aurora 38 jet spa (wholesale recreaction- purchased through ebay)
Balboa Pack with 5.5kw heater

Another problem I have is now there is water trapped in the lines but the tub itself is empty, drain plug was even frozen and had to drain with a bucket.

Well the Balboa M7 series requires patience and time for it to decide to turn on the heater. It makes it's own decision about when to do this. It doesn't just happen when you turn up the temperature setting.

If you've had dr alerts then it is likely that it will wait for a while, perform internal measurement testing then when all is determined that the system is well and safe, it should turn on.

However, now that you've drained the spa there's nothing you can do to test anything. The problem isn't your heater element, but rather the element(s) that you're attempting to get the tub up and running in. The only way you will ever get this thing up and running is to fill it back up, let it get running and at least water flowing in the tub - as this will also allow for passive heat generated by water friction and the pump motor to bring the temperature of the water out of the freezing zone.

Honestly, you would have been better off today if you had left the water in it, with the pump running. The system knows it's cold and that's why it'll keep the system going until it at least reaches a minimum safe zone temperature (44 deg F).

tonight i will pump heat into the sides of the tub around the shell and fill with hot water, i was going to leave it running but one half of the jets were not operating so I didnt want to ruin anything else...I assume I will be ok if i can get water to circulate through the entire tub and if the heater is pouched I can throw in a pool heater or something to maintain some tempurate in the water until i get the issue if any resolved??

1. You should only use the heater that the spa was equipped with that is appropriately rated for the use.

2. The need for additional heating should be unnecessary with the pump(s) running.

3. The idea (at this point!) is to keep the water out of the freeze ZONE, not 'heat it up' per se.

And the only way you can do this is with the pump(s) running - with or without an operating heater.

That said, my bet is that once you get the water circulating properly in the tub your control and heater will probably work fine.

will filling the tub up with hot tap water and running the circ pumps be enough to thaw any frozen lines? it is suppose to warm up to about +1 or +2 celcius the next couple of days. My spa is only suppose to have 1 jet pump but there are 2 pumps that look idenitcal, one is the circ and the other is the blower? if so then i assume i wont damage the jet pump if water is circulating through the tub albeit only on one side?? sorry if these are stupid questions, it should have been as easy as wiring it up and starting it, i didnt expect someone would ship a hot tub with water in the lines..

Well the tub has to get tested at the factory and there's almost no way to rid the tub completely of all water.

I don't know how you'll fair with warm water melting down the bits of ice in the tub but you can try. Perhaps you can post a digital photo of the equipment in question and that'll help a bit.

OK I will fill the tub up and let water circulate until i have water moving through all the lines. One thing I didnt mention in this post is that when the spa tripped the breaker there was a little bit of smoke coming from the balboa pack, when we open the panel it was the sticker on the flow through pipe, is this an indication that the element got too hot and maybe damaged? What time do you repsond to post until??

Well it never should have gotten that way. My guess it may have been fooled because ice and water was in the heater... you may have fried heater element, and/or damaged sensors - but if they're damaged the unit should not activate.

You won't know until you do some checking. YOu'll need to put an ohm meter on the heater element leads with the power off and see if you're reading 10-15 ohms or so. Even then, it could have fractured the element casing which would cause a ground fault.

Id still replace it as a protective measure after an event like that.

And I'm here all hours of day and night.

I have always been under the impression from Balboa the ohm needs to be between 7-12 for it to be good.......... Your a bit high aren't you?

ok i just got a response from the company i purchased the tub from and they are telling me "i may have been upgraded to a 2 pump 12 horse model" which would explain why half the tub wasn't working if there was an airlock, saying that if there was an airlock and the tub was running and the heater came on but water was not flowing through the heater tube what would be the outcome. Keep in mind the breaker tripped and the heater tube was hot enough to start melting the sticker on the heater tube. Is the element fried? or should i try and remove the airlock and get water circulating through the tub and see if the heater kicks in. After the breaker tripped I was able to run the tub with water circulating to one half without the breaker tripping??

Thanks for your responses aswell, very timely and helpful. More so then the company and manuals I was provided.

Heaters usually come in 1KW to 1.5 KW on 120v.

A 1 KW heater draws about 8.3 amps, and ohm's out around 14.5
A 1.5 KW heater draws about 12.5 AMPS, and ohms out about 9.6



A heater that OHMS out at only 7 Ohm's would draw over 17 AMPS, a 2KW 120v heater. There is no such animal in the US.

Generally, when a heater fails (no heat), it fails royally in the OHM dept. Sort of like a light bulb, it's either good, or it's bad...not much in between.

Besides that, Balboa doesn't make heater elements. " title="Twisted Evil" /> Additionally, analog meter readings can be off +-5 ohms anyway. A cheap digital? Real cheap been beat around and peed on by the dog? Who knows. If it'll give it a go / no go continuity, the actual reading is just a nominal one.