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My hot tub suddenly shut down one day with one “popping” sound coming from the control board. I took the cover off and tried to turn the breaker on and immediately “POP!!” I filmed it and saw that the short happens right where the power wires are screwed into the control board. I took the wires out and can see some rust/corrosion on one of the wires clearly. I was going to cut this part off, restrip the wires to get “fresh” wire and screw them into the control panel. Should this fix the problem? Do I need to somehow clean the control panel where the wires connect with a qtip and alcohol? I cannot see into the holes where the wires enter the control panel but assume there might be rust/corrosion there as well?

Update

I put wire nuts on the wires shown and flipped the breaker “on”. No popping, nothing from the wires.

The breaker box has an on/off bar but I don’t recall seeing any “test” button. Although I have never looked for one, I will go home and look now.

The soot must be coming from when the “pop” sound happened. I have a slo-no video of this. It is sounding to me that this is an issue with the control board and possibly corrosion of connectors?

Michael Karas
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Christopher Marchetti
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    Put wire nuts on the disconnected power supply wires and try the breaker again. This will isolate the problem to the cabling (if it pops anyway) or the tub equipment (if it does not). Proceed from there. – jay613 Apr 10 '23 at 16:27
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    Please also tell us about your circuit breaker: is it the kind with only the lever/handle for turning on and off, or does it also have any kind of a "Test" button? – Greg Hill Apr 10 '23 at 16:58
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    Copper can slowly corrode and get a greenish patina, but it doesn’t rust. That black stuff looks like soot from whatever started burning. – red_menace Apr 10 '23 at 17:33
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    Does the terminal or instructions specify a screw torque? Was that set to the correct torque when initially installed? Does the breaker have a TEST button on it? – Harper - Reinstate Monica Apr 10 '23 at 17:34
  • Does the red wire feel broken where it is bent sharply at 90 degrees? – jay613 Apr 10 '23 at 21:32

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