Canada?
You certainly have an odd duck there with that heater. Those collars are current leakage collectors with grounding lugs and look like this.....below. You connect them to the heater housing with pvc fittings (as shown)to insulate them from the electrical components of the heater. Then you run a #10 copper grounding wire between the two collectors (unspliced) back to the service equipment where your dwellings main disconnect is located and bond it there with the service grounded conductor. Inside the heater controls compartment is another ground lug which you connect the egc of the branch circuit supply conductors.
These collectors have nothing to do with the operation of the gfci. They are supposed to collect leakage currents that are undetectable by the gfci (in the water) and safely give them a path around the gfci (I think) so that it doesn't nuisance trip. Rather an odd and concerning design IMO.
My observation is that you should have to bond this heater and collectors to the equipotential grid with all the other metal around the pool. I'm not seeing that in the drawing.
Can you link us to the instructions??
Just for reference for you and others here are some pictures of a used Kstar 5000 watt unit. The KS-5 has been discontinued and is now replaced by a K5 Heater.
You certainly have an odd duck there with that heater. Those collars are current leakage collectors with grounding lugs and look like this.....below. You connect them to the heater housing with pvc fittings (as shown)to insulate them from the electrical components of the heater. Then you run a #10 copper grounding wire between the two collectors (unspliced) back to the service equipment where your dwellings main disconnect is located and bond it there with the service grounded conductor. Inside the heater controls compartment is another ground lug which you connect the egc of the branch circuit supply conductors.
These collectors have nothing to do with the operation of the gfci. They are supposed to collect leakage currents that are undetectable by the gfci (in the water) and safely give them a path around the gfci (I think) so that it doesn't nuisance trip. Rather an odd and concerning design IMO.
My observation is that you should have to bond this heater and collectors to the equipotential grid with all the other metal around the pool. I'm not seeing that in the drawing.
Can you link us to the instructions??
Just for reference for you and others here are some pictures of a used Kstar 5000 watt unit. The KS-5 has been discontinued and is now replaced by a K5 Heater.

