The exercise spa that we have been enjoying since 2015 broke down just after New Year’s Day. I thought that the heater wore out but it turned out that the circuit board burned through where the heater connected to it. We had extended travel plans through February and early March so I delayed the order of the new equipment until I returned in mid March. Although the weather turned cold and snowy for a week after the new equipment arrived, it finally warmed up enough to begin the installation.
I had a problem understanding the installation directions for the Ozone/UV Sanitizer that I added to the new system. On our system the pump is before the spa pack and heater so water goes from the pump to the heater and then back to the spa. The design example I was trying to copy has the water flowing through the spa pack to the pump and the input on the left of the device instead of the right. So it didn’t work for my install.
I called Acura Spa for clarification and was told to use another install diagram. But instead of flowing directly into the spa, the return flows into a feed to one of the jets. In this arrangement it did not matter that the pump is in front of the control pack.
I installed the first manifold just past the Spa control pack and valve. It attached to a flexible area of solid pipe so it was easy to install.
The recommendation was to hook the second manifold into a return jet going to the side of the spa instead of the high flow jets. This would prevent reducing the flow to those jets. I cut the spa pipe after the main jets before the pipe bent around the corner going to the side jet.
I had to reduce the size of the manifold to 1 1/2″ to install it in this position. I asked Acura support why the piece has two 3/4″ outlets instead of one and the answer was that the piece does not come with just one outlet! It’s too expensive to have one made just for this application so the second port has to be plugged.
I had some difficulty getting this spa pipe to connect to the manifold and then bend around the corner of the spa. I glued in a few extra pieces of pipe to get the manifold installed here.
I connected the output for the sanitizer on this side. Then the input hose was attached to the first manifold.
In order to loop the O2 line above the water level I had to attach the sanitizer to a board to raise it in the cabinet.
The next step was inserting the new spa pack in between the pump and the return water side. I just had to connect the same power lines to the new control and attach the pump ground where it was on the old pack.
Our system has a 12v light and a single pump and now the ozone sanitizer so it does not have the extra plugs shown on the left of the diagram.
I just had two bare wires for the 12v light so I had to order a cable from Acura Spas just to get the correct plug for the unit. But in the meantime the new Control box is installed in the plumbing and wired.
Now I just have to clean the spa so that I can order water and see if the new plumbing is tight and the new controls operate correctly.