Troubleshooting a sauna

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growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
Well I took a couple minutes and looked up this type of sauna and they didn't really give any installation instructions. They state that a 20 Amp 240V receptacle will be needed and that's about it for the electrical. I would think that it comes with a cord attached or in the kit.

If this is a self contained piece of equipment they should provide some sort of service and repair on it. No UL sticker but it is CE listed (so they say).

Is it really an electrician's job to jump in there and start trouble shooting a piece of equipment like this? I wouldn't, I have not been trained and I'm not qualified.

I would check out his power and if that's OK I would tell him/her to call the people that sold it to them.
 

eds

Senior Member
This is a sauna, no gfi required, but I will install to aid in troubleshooting. The unit is plugged in via a 10' chordfactory installed, the chord does have a egc and it rings out to the panel egc when plugged in. Manufacture states that there is no service tech, and they have had one other complaint similar to this, new power supply was sent and no other action was required.

Alougth I wasn't involved in the actual assembly everything had a snap plug that are snapped together as the unit goes together. The power supplies are connected thru a two wire chord, typical of these power supplies for low voltage lighting, power supplies are rated to 240v with a 12 v dc output. New power supply is on the way, so all test will be performed again after power supply is installed.

One question, if I did have voltage on the egc, would it present itself to a isolated ground rod driven 3', this was one test I preformed with a reading of .01 ( digital meter ). This was from the load enter neutral / ground bar.
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
The rod you drove will be a useful "remote earth" reference as long as there are no significant earth currents for any reason to cause a gradient through the earth itself.
 

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
I would not touch the sauna if it is under warranty.

Manufacture states that there is no service tech.



Isn't that just flippen great, no service tech.

Just for fun read the warranty folks. You can ship down to limited lifetime.


http://www.sunlighten.com/warranty.html

Without a service tech that means that anyone working on the system basically has to learn all about it. The odds on working on another one in the near future are not good. So either the owner is stuck footing the bill for a learning experience or the electrician has to eat it.
 
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
Isn't that just flippen great, no service tech.

Just for fun read the warranty folks. You can ship down to limited lifetime.


http://www.sunlighten.com/warranty.html

Without a service tech that means that anyone working on the system basically has to learn all about it. The odds on working on another one in the near future are not good. So either the owner is stuck footing the bill for a learning experience or the electrician has to eat it.


We we just installed recept for a 120v model at a customers. In a bathroom so. GFCI. Nice to know the funky details when things fall apart. I don't know if it has been turned on yet.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Isn't that just flippen great, no service tech.

Just for fun read the warranty folks. You can ship down to limited lifetime.


http://www.sunlighten.com/warranty.html

Without a service tech that means that anyone working on the system basically has to learn all about it. The odds on working on another one in the near future are not good. So either the owner is stuck footing the bill for a learning experience or the electrician has to eat it.
Electrician doesn't have to eat it. Owner is welcome to try to find someone that has experience - but could possibly cost more then paying for the learning of someone that is local.

If you are in higher population density area - chances are better of finding someone with better experience on some specialty items.

If you are in the boonies like me - the local guys have to learn about a lot of things they seldom see, but at same time we are the closest experts and if we find something we don't know much about part of being an expert is knowing how to research the areas you are not familiar with. If owner wants me to eat that then I don't want to help them. I can be somewhat flexible when I make mistakes, but still need to ask myself if there is anyone else better qualified within reasonable distance and charge accordingly.
 

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
So either the owner is stuck footing the bill for a learning experience or the electrician has to eat it.

Electrician doesn't have to eat it. Owner is welcome to try to find someone that has experience - but could possibly cost more then paying for the learning of someone that is local.


I said either the owner is stuck footing the bill for a learning experience or the electrician has to eat it.

Yes the owner is welcome to try and find someone with more experience which probably doesn't exist.

What I know from experience is that an owner can get upset (mad) at one of two people when they end up with a large bill for what was appeared to be small problem because the tech is not familiar with equipment. The company that sold the equipment and don't provide tech support or the poor sod ( I like british curse words) that's standing right in front of them with a bill in his hand.
 

eds

Senior Member
Update

Update

So I am still having a issue--- manufacture has been sending parts for me to replace,,, main power supply box, Lighting control unit, and dvd with no change of out come. There customer care rep is trying to get approval from management to come out and lay eyes on the sauna, which i have little faith in after a recommendation to remove the GFI breaker. GFI breaker was installed as part of my troubleshooting and was not initially installed, but will likely remain after the unit is fixed. I am still seeing a voltage of 140v dc to either the egc or to the neutral/egc bar in the panel. I ruled out a ghost voltage partly by a incidental contact between the metal trim and a grounded source, and the following incident. I installed a GFI breaker, and during one of my test the jumper wire from the ground bar touched the metal case of the lamp, which tripped the breaker, this only happened once and I did not try to duplicate a second time. What is interesting to note on the lamp, is part of the lamp base appears to be ceramic, with the metal component on the lower half ( i will try to upload a picture) I see no return path. I am only reading this voltage on the dc components, metal case on the dvd, metal on the speaker jacks and the lamps and trim. Voltage readings on the power control box and lighting control box are zero. The 140v dc will also read as 38v ac, and interesting with one probe on a grounded jumper and one lead in free air a ac reading of .03 or so is displayed outside of the sauna, and inside the sauna the display will read 1 or 2 volts. This must be a ghost reading, but noticed a change stepping inside to outside. Would appreciate any comments or potential steps to try next.
 

eds

Senior Member
pictures of the lamp and trim
 

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Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
So I am still having a issue--- manufacture has been sending parts for me to replace,,, main power supply box, Lighting control unit, and dvd with no change of out come. There customer care rep is trying to get approval from management to come out and lay eyes on the sauna, which i have little faith in after a recommendation to remove the GFI breaker. GFI breaker was installed as part of my troubleshooting and was not initially installed, but will likely remain after the unit is fixed. I am still seeing a voltage of 140v dc to either the egc or to the neutral/egc bar in the panel. I ruled out a ghost voltage partly by a incidental contact between the metal trim and a grounded source, and the following incident. I installed a GFI breaker, and during one of my test the jumper wire from the ground bar touched the metal case of the lamp, which tripped the breaker, this only happened once and I did not try to duplicate a second time. What is interesting to note on the lamp, is part of the lamp base appears to be ceramic, with the metal component on the lower half ( i will try to upload a picture) I see no return path. I am only reading this voltage on the dc components, metal case on the dvd, metal on the speaker jacks and the lamps and trim. Voltage readings on the power control box and lighting control box are zero. The 140v dc will also read as 38v ac, and interesting with one probe on a grounded jumper and one lead in free air a ac reading of .03 or so is displayed outside of the sauna, and inside the sauna the display will read 1 or 2 volts. This must be a ghost reading, but noticed a change stepping inside to outside. Would appreciate any comments or potential steps to try next.

temp up some bonding jumpers with alligator clips and bond the offending pieces to an EG in Series with an amp meter, if your meter has the ability. It won't fix anything, just mask the problem, but you should be able to find the part(s) giving the most grief.

Ignore all your other work because you just love to follow up on malfunctioning POS.
 

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
There customer care rep is trying to get approval from management to come out and lay eyes on the sauna, which i have little faith in after a recommendation to remove the GFI breaker.

See if they can get you a number for one of the engineers that designed this equipment in the first place. Explain your problem to them and see if they can figure it out.

The problem dealing with equipment like this us that you may have a design or manufacturing flaw.

All those approval stickers on the unit are probably for individaul components and not the completed unit.
 
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