Elec Sys Water well pump 'on strike'...

[West]

Thinking one of these, anchored to the bottom of the "sump" (tote)...tied to a brick, maybe...when the "sump" empties, it's designed to shut off the pump.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMVNVH14/

View attachment 426371

I have two of those. And it should close on fall. Simply run a DC relay that has normally closed contacts. When it's energized it opens the contacts and opens the circuit to the pump.

If you can get a float switch that opens on fall like the one that your well pump has or should have so you don't ever run that dry, simply run the positive side wire that runs your lift or sump pump.

Yes most sump pump floats open on fall.

The two I have that look like that are stock tank floats, they close on fall.

 

[West]

Once you get the float switch, simply ohm it, and see what it does when it's pointing up or down.

 

[RememberGoliad]

West, my pressure pump is 110vac. Draws 13A according to its dataplate. This switch, if I copied the correct link (I have several of 'em saved on a list at Amazon) is rated at 16A.

Everything works as it should currently, it's just arranged like a squirrel on crack laid it out, but all the players are playing their parts. I just worry that something is going to cut loose somewhere and drain the holding tank. That electric booster pump can empty the tank faster than the solar pump can refill it, which could cause a dry-run situation with the booster pump if a big enough leak happens, or a hose gets left on, or you-name-it. I want to put a safety on the AC booster pump, to shut it down if the holding tank gets too low for (its) comfort.

It only takes one goat getting in the wrong place and getting in a shoving match with another goat, while we're gone, to have us come back to a broken-off faucet and a smoked pump. And all for the lack of some sort of safety switch on the power to the booster pump.

 

[Millwright]

I would be hesitant to use the cheepest chicom offerings.

The price of failure is high enough to warrant a better piece of equipment.

Here's the Grainger page of float switches. Typically, they don't sell the el crapo grade stuff.

https://www.grainger.com/search/pumps/sump-sewage-utility-pumps/sump-sewage-pump-floats-switches-controls/sump-sewage-float-diaphragm-switches?filters=webParentSkuKey&searchQuery=float+switch&webParentSkuKey=WP11074505&sst=4&tv_optin=true

Once you find something, then search it out on the webz for decent pricing.

When I was doing some commercial lift stations, we found a really heavy duty float switch that wouldn't die. I just don't remember anything about brand or such, It had a float that was about 6" in diameter. I didn't see it in the listing above.

With a 13 amp pump, I would really consider using a contactor set up instead of wiring the switch directly in the power curcuit. This would also allow you to put a photocell and manual switch in the controls.

The Little Giant switch would probably do as good as any if you are using a contactor and be locally available.

 

[RememberGoliad]

The price of failure is high enough to warrant a better piece of equipment

In this case, not so much. It's protecting a 175 dollar HF pump. Get much over about a third of that for a safety switch, and might as well buy a 2nd pump (which is already in the plans) to put on the shelf against a failure. Now, if I was protecting a thousand-plus dollar pump, which this one would probably be once accessing it is considered if it was down the hole, I'd buy the best protection I could find.

The pump down the hole has a pump saver on it. The pump up top does not. Thinking cheap fix for protecting a cheap pump. Also, the pump down the hole is spensive. The pump up top is not. I'll focus on protecting the one below.

It's been going almost a week now, pumping pressured water into the house and doing what it is supposed to do. I did move the panels up to a new rack facing semi-south and somewhere semi-near 30 degrees of tilt. Thing starts pumping at about 8am and doesn't start its 'low power' shenanigans until nearly 6pm, so it's close enough. Pumps about 100 gal/hr, roughly measured by the 'hmm, now when did it start and how low was it?' method. I'm liking this setup more and more, the longer I have it.

On related note, got a couple of 275 gallon olive oil IBC totes this morning, they're currently being inspected by the gaggle of goats. DW went to run 'em off, I told her no, let 'em put their 'approved' tag on 'em out in the yard so they don't get curious and go barge into the (yet to be built) pump house. Of course, being goats, move the tanks six inches in any direction, or even rotate 'em a few degrees and the tanks will require re-inspection

 

[Millwright]

OH, get a good receptacle too, not the 98 cent one.

 

[West]

Good stuff, from Millright...

Quote...

(With a 13 amp pump, I would really consider using a contactor set up instead of wiring the switch directly in the power curcuit. This would also allow you to put a photocell and manual switch in the controls.)

As long as you understand switch logic the above makes huge sense.

If you have a working schematic snap a picture and let us see it.

 

[Millwright]

Good stuff, from Millright...

Quote...

(With a 13 amp pump, I would really consider using a contactor set up instead of wiring the switch directly in the power curcuit. This would also allow you to put a photocell and manual switch in the controls.)

As long as you understand switch logic the above makes huge sense.

If you have a working schematic snap a picture and let us see it.

I would just have to build it.

The only odd thing would be a contactor with a 120v coil.

Supply house has them, but not something that goes out the door every day.

 

[West]

I would just have to build it.

The only odd thing would be a contactor with a 120v coil.

Supply house has them, but not something that goes out the door every day.

I know you know. Your a Millright.

Was asking OP to post a schematic if he would like.

Here's to getting your own potable water! Huge benefit to all and the homesteaders.

 

[RememberGoliad]

Was asking OP to post a schematic if he would like.

I 'would like'...LOL...but I don't have one. It's all in my head. This evening, I'll see if I can put it on paper in a way that makes sense.

I've never been one to work off of printed plans. I visualize what needs to happen and, once I know which components are necessary and won't go to waste regardless of the direction I want to go, I go get the real parts and start doing. I never had gotten any protection for the booster pump because it never occurred to me, and had I been working from a set of plans, it wouldn't have included such protection. I could take some pics of the current status of the set up, or even a short vid, I have zero problems with doing that, if anyone's curious. Might take me a day or so to get it done and uploaded, but if it helps someone here, I'm happy to do it.

Another project(s) I'm working on is a wireless remote steering setup for a solar-electric paddleboat I set up for a buddy of mine. It makes 4-5 mph tops on a small municipal lake. My friend charters it and generally runs it at just fast enough to maintain steerage, and wants to be able to make rudder adjustments without having to run to the helm every time. So, a linear actuator, a lawn tractor axle, and a few pieces of 5/16 cold roll later, and we're getting somewhere. I have no plans for it, but can visualize the thing and just build to that mental image. Got it all working but it was too slow to be useful, so had to shorten the actuator and change the radius length on its pivot point, and I had to eat the 10" actuator when I switched out to a 2". (I already have plans for that longer one to open a walk gate for DW to not have to fight so hard with it from her wheelchair. So it's not a waste.) I can snap pics of those two squirrel chases, too, if anyone's interested LOL.

 

[West]

I'm ambidextrous, love writing wiring control schematics. Then proving it by doing it.

But if time is short I skip the writing it out into a good working schematic. However having good schematics makes it even easier to hop scotch it for trouble shooting it later on.

Gone back to control circuit boards I've wired years ago, and my schematic I did years ago is gone or someone/factory else's schematic is gone. I'm all WTF kind if moron did thus hodge podge.....

It's all good.

 

[Millwright]

I'm ambidextrous, love writing wiring control schematics. Then proving it by doing it.

But if time is short I skip the writing it out into a good working schematic. However having good schematics makes it even easier to hop scotch it for trouble shooting it later on.

Gone back to control circuit boards I've wired years ago, and my schematic I did years ago is gone or someone/factory else's schematic is gone. I'm all WTF kind if moron did thus hodge podge.....

It's all good.

Fo dollahs at hobo Freight.

Must have for troubleshooting.

 

[RememberGoliad]

But if time is short I skip the writing it out into a good working schematic.

Dad would do that while the knowledge was fresh, especially when doing some of his 'redneck engineering' in the house wiring. He's been gone for years now, and a year or so ago, Mom's living room ceiling fan stopped. Son decided to dive into it, and when he took the bell off of the cover plate, a neatly folded piece of paper floated down to the floor. Bubba unfolded it and it was notes on where the power came from (it was an install into an unlit ceiling) and which wires did what, dated 1985. He thought it was so cool that his pawpaw left him a note before he even knew he had a grandson (Son was born in '87.)

Since then, another couple of different ceiling fixtures needed attention (only the kitchen had a ceiling light in it when I was young) and there were notes tucked away in them, too. Also found a sketch of the well water lines' locations in a zippy bag in the wellhouse, written in 1980 when they had to have a new well drilled. Earliest note I found was dated 1967, a detailed list of which breaker went to which outlets and lights.

I've always written an after-action report, so to speak, with whatever's needed to help someone figure it out if I'm not available for whatever reason, but it never occurred to me to put at least a copy of the thing in to be found by someone having to work on it until Bubba found that note.

 

[Griz3752]

Water quit flowing this morning. Found burnt terminal in capacitor box, which was damn near in an inaccessible location. So, had to 'back burner' that for the day and get to a job, while I was in town picked up a new pump controller. Pulled all the wires off the old one with burnt stab-in terminal and wired in new one. Before putting the lid on it, I checked the resistance between the three pump wires and all 3 were at the high end of where they should be, according to the chart on the back wall of the mounting box. I then checked all three to the ground and they're all showing dead short to ground (zero ohms). That's not normal, is it? (answer from vid in later post: No it is not normal.) Sounds to me like pump's fried or wire's got a real live break in all three sleeves of insulation.

Thoughts?

(I'll add that this is kinda urgent, as we have family coming in this weekend and no water and Mama is gonna get stressed....and when Mama's stressed, everybody's stressed!)

My only question is was this a sudden failure or had this been a situation taking it's time to trip you up?
Has anyone done any work on the unit, maybe without your knowledge?

 

[RememberGoliad]

My only question is was this a sudden failure or had this been a situation taking it's time to trip you up?
Has anyone done any work on the unit, maybe without your knowledge?

I think it was entirely due to gullibility. I took the seller's word at "new well hardware" in which he implied pump as well as the visible stuff. Turned out the visible stuff was all date-coded 2016-17 or was new enough looking to lend credence to that claim. When I got the pump to the surface, its date code was 2004. Seller bought the place in 2005. So the little ****er probably demanded a new well pump (hole was poked in 1984) before buying, then snookered me into thinking he'd done the same when in reality he'd only replaced the pressure tank and control box.

It's been going for a year or two. Occasionally we'd have no water, but wait 2-3 hrs and have water. That is in line with others in the area who say that recharge is VERY SLOW, like <5gpm, and a 3/4 hp pump will do 8gpm or more. Believable that one could drain one's 'pocket' and take time to recharge. Now that I see the age of the pump itself, I wonder if it wasn't a thermal protection in the pump that was activating. Not a pumpsaver, those are separate little doohickeys. Or possibly even just overheating of the pump bearings and they'd bind up and seize the rotor until they cooled off and relaxed. With the truthfulness of the seller now in question, I begin to wonder if he wasn't having the same problem and sweating out the thing continuing to make water til he got paid for the place.

To your next question, no, not since we moved here fulltime in 2020. Between '17 and '20, possible but not likely, as the controls and pressure tank were (before July '23) in a lockable shed which I did padlock when nobody was here. Our place is completely out of sight of the county road, we access through a deeded easement and are behind a heavily-wooded piece of land. The general public has no clue we're back here, so I seriously doubt anyone has made the effort to go see what Fred Sanford's alter-ego (the neighbor over whom we have an easement) might have in his back yard behind the trees.

I will say that five months in, we've had water each and every time we've twisted a faucet. And we can use it reasonably at any rate we can get it to flow, none of this crack the faucet and fill the trough over 4 hours so we don't run the well dry bullcrap. I turned down the solar submersible to where it produces about 3-4 gpm and it's got a pumpsaver on it which has never activated. So, barring something crapping its bed, we have off-grid water at the surface on demand, and I have the parts to have flow in the house on demand without using co-op power.