Hot Tub Holds Water (but isnt hot)

Its been quite a project, but I finally have the hot tub holding water. Before I did anything, I buried the 6 gauge cable in conduit and ran a line to from the tub to the house. There, I put an outdoor GFCI circuit breaker on a post, and ran a cable from it into the house into the circuit breaker. I figured this would be the most labor-intensive aspect of the install. Notsomuch. When I went to fill it up for the first time, I found a few leaks from fittings and broken hoses. I replaced what I saw was broken or leaking, and then filled it up again. BTW, in order to do this, the tub had to be removed from the wooden frame, which is a pain because this thing is extremely heavy and awkward. So I played this game a few times, before getting fed up and just replacing all of the hoses and fittings. Even then, I would still have trouble as one would break as we attempted to put the tub back in the frame.

Yesterday I filled it up and he held water with no leaks. Awesome! So I wired in the spa control unit and turned it on. *breaker flipping*. Crap, I hit a few buttons and turn it on again. This time the pump came on and seemed to be working . I hit the button to turn the blower on and the breaker flipped again. I did this several time with the same end result. The blower spins up briefly, so its not as if its motor is seized.

The next issue I ran into is that the heater doesn't come on. I turn the temperature control and can hear it click, but nothing happens. I traced some wires, and the voltage stops at this intermediate controller. I think the controller is looking for input from the temperature control (which it is) and to assure the pump is on (which it is) but I don't think its getting the signal . I think my temporary solution is going to be to bypass that controller so that the heater will come on until I can buy a new spa pack. They run just under $300 plus shipping.

With that, I am still coming out pretty good on this purchase. The spa cost me $400, I spent ~ ~$150 to plumb it and ~$200 to wire it. If I buy a new controller, I will have spent right around $1k, and a new hot tub would've be several thousand.