I bought a PL1601 pump. Ive wired it as instructed but Step 12 has me confused. It says to attach the bonding wire to the motors bonding plug. What and where is the bonding wire? My previous pump did not have one that I am aware of.
Hi Jayeggs,
Properly bonding your pool equipment is very important to reduce the risk of electric shock. Here is a description of what bonding is:
Have you ever experienced a static shock?..You know, you shuffle your feet across a carpet in the dry season and touch a metal doorknob. If you were bonded to that doorknob when you shuffled across the floor you would not have felt it when you touched it. Everything in the universe has what is refered to as electrical potential. Humans have a certain potential, a piece of steel has its own potential, water its own, etc, etc, etc. Most times this potential is not different enough to feel it. When you shuffle your feet on the carpet though, your potential changes from that of the doorknob. When you get close enough to the doorknob both you and the doorknob want to get to the same potential. when that happens, a spark jumps the gap and evens out the potential. Fortunatly there is little amperage behind it so there is no chance of geting electrocuted. Now, lets look at your pool. your pool pump is grounded back to the source thru the ground wire. But, it still is at some level of potential. Your pool water is at some other level of potential, your heater at its own level, heck, the ground you are standing on is at some level of potential. This means that all of the items in the vicinity have some varying degree of electrical potential. Under most circumstances these potentials are so close to each other that you never feel any kind of shock. however, every once in a while something happens to change the potential of one of the items. It could be a stray voltage induced from an underground electrical service, It could be a slight resistive leakage of current in your pumping system. What ever it is there is a potential difference. Now imagine you are getting out of the pool and as you touch the metal side of the pool you get the shock of your life. Hopefully not enough to kill you but a good shot none-the-less. Guess what? You just became the bonding conductor in the system. Had all of the components in the system been bonded together by the #8 bonding wire you never would have felt it. The wire is a non-resistive path between all of the components and since electricity is lazy, it will take the least resistive path. This bonding system will also protect you if you were standing on the ground and decided to touch the water to see how warm it is. If the bond is in place there would be no potential difference between the water and the ground even if there were a stray current floating around.
- danpik TroubleFreePool.com
There is usually a copper pole in the ground or a single point where all your equipment should be bonded to with a #8 solid copper wire. If you are not comfortable working with electricity I would strongly suggest hiring a licensed electrician to help you properly bond all your pool equipment.