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Confused by pump controller

Beccy

Active member
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285
Location
Highlands
Recently my system had been playing up. Towards the end of the day, on three different days, the pump had been stopping and starting, so by the time I've scrubbed the window, it's stopped and I have to wait 30 seconds or so and then it starts again for just about long enough to rinse.

When I go back to the trailer, the pump controller is saying that the battery is at around 9.5V which would explain the problem, but two things don't make sense...

1. The battery has an inbuilt charge indicator that says it's fully charged

2. When I put multimeter on it it says 12.75V.

I charge the battery after every working day with a charger that switches to a maintenance charge once the battery is full, the battery is only about a year old and I work part time so is hasn't been excessively used.

Could it be a problem with the controller rather than the battery?

 
Hi Beccy have you any other battery to try? Although it seems unlikely that it is your battery its worth checking about two years ago I had exactly the same symptoms water flow was stopping and starting and it turned out battery was shot.

 
wat sort controller is it were u buy it ?? i upgraded controller and it has built in charger but has to be hooked direct to van bat to charge it as wel as hook upto the leisure bat

 
If the battery is fully charged then I would look for a bad connection from the battery to your controller on both the positive and negative sides.

We started off with crocodile clamps on the battery terminals which didn't work very well so changed those to proper battery clamps.

Another issue can be any joins in the cable and a notorious place is the fuse holder. If the blades of the fuse aren't making proper contact in the holder, then this will cause a resistance and reduce voltage. It will also generate heat at that point.

If you have a Spring controller, Spring recommend that you leave your pressure switch in place as added protection. I've come across a faulty switch which has played havoc with the controller. In the case I'm referring to we 'removed' the pressure switch from the circuit and the controller started behaving as it should. (We 'removed the switch by unplugging the two red wires (Shurflo pump) from the pressure switch and joined them together.)

It might also be worth unscrewing the 4 screws that hold the front panel on of the controller and look at the plug that connects your battery and pump to the controller's PC board. If it looks burnt then this could be the problem. Please disconnect the battery terminal before you do this.

 
wat sort controller is it were u buy it ?? i upgraded controller and it has built in charger but has to be hooked direct to van bat to charge it as wel as hook upto the leisure bat

If memory serves me correctly, Becci doesn't have a van.

 
I have a very similar problem I have a concept 20 hot water system. It's wired to the van battery you have to have the van engine running to get the system to fire up lf you don't you cannot get enough water flow before the controer stops the pump and low battery light comes up. So I brought a 135amp leasure battery and it still does the same.would of thought 135 would be easy enough but no..Any one have any ideas

 
I have a very similar problem I have a concept 20 hot water system. It's wired to the van battery you have to have the van engine running to get the system to fire up lf you don't you cannot get enough water flow before the controer stops the pump and low battery light comes up. So I brought a 135amp leasure battery and it still does the same.would of thought 135 would be easy enough but no..Any one have any ideas
It sounds as though you also have a bad connection. If you put a volt meter across the battery after you have let it settle for a couple of hours, it should read 12.7v or above when fully charged.

As I said to Beccy, most common are battery connectors and fuse holders.

We use a 110 amp leisure battery and it does the two of us all day with no problems.

The 2 of us have been doing a large contract and use about 1000 liters a day with 2 pumps going. battery was fully charged after each days work.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
If memory serves me correctly, Becci doesn't have a van.
That's right spruce, no van, I work off a bike so the battery is charged in the garage every night.

It's this controller:

c4a5df5b7713b238b28334a8ade82c1f.jpg


I'll have a look for loose connections tomorrow and retest the battery when it's been resting (I tested it before straight after using it, didn't know that was wrong). The only other battery I have is the little one in my homemade trolley system. It's only 9ah so don't know if that could realistically run my big system.

 
That's right spruce, no van, I work off a bike so the battery is charged in the garage every night.
It's this controller:

c4a5df5b7713b238b28334a8ade82c1f.jpg


I'll have a look for loose connections tomorrow and retest the battery when it's been resting (I tested it before straight after using it, didn't know that was wrong). The only other battery I have is the little one in my homemade trolley system. It's only 9ah so don't know if that could realistically run my big system.
12.75v would increase slightly once you have let the battery settle. The same applies to charging. Once you have taken the battery off charge it should be left for a few hours for the voltage to stabilize (the books says 4 hours will give the most accurate reading.)

The magic eye of your battery and your voltmeter would seem to agree with each other. So my guess it will be in a connection somewhere between the battery and the controller.

I will also agree that your 9amp hour battery won't last long with your Shurflo pump. I'm guessing on 2 hours or maybe a fraction more providing to have a slow flow. Your pump will be drawing around 3.5 to 4 amps an hour.

 
Thanks spruce, I'll have a fiddle with the connections and see if anything is obviously poor. It's going top be tricky seeing as it's an intermittent problem /emoticons/unsure.png

 
Thanks spruce, I'll have a fiddle with the connections and see if anything is obviously poor. It's going top be tricky seeing as it's an intermittent problem /emoticons/unsure.png
You're right with what you say. When the pump does to play up, I would put my pole down with the unit still on and go back to my setup and wriggle wires. Feel for any warm wire joins.

You posted a picture of your trailer once when you had an issue with your pump, but I couldn't find it when I did a search. I was hoping to see if there were any joins I would focus on. My main focus would be battery terminals and the fuse holder.

There was a similar issue on another forum and is turned out to be one of those cable joiners they wasn't crimped properly.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Butt-Joiners-Insulated-Wire-Connector-Electrical-Crimp-Terminal-Red-Blue-Yellow-/291246790583?var=&hash=item43cfa957b7

In the power tool industry a break inside the cable was a common fault where the power cable when into the power tool. Wriggling the wires would get the tool to start and stop again, so we would be able to spot the problem. This was the first test we did before we stripped the tool down looking for other faults.

 
Your battery isn't holding the charge like it used to do so is on it's way out. Battery life is on cycles not how old it is. So you can charge a battery and says fully charged but instead of giving for example 7 hrs this starts to decline 6/5 and so on.

 
You have a good point there Doug.

I read the first post as the battery is reading 9.5v on the controller but 12.75v on the multimeter at a similar time, hence the suggestion that there was a bad connection somewhere between the battery and controller. Come to think about it, the battery should be reading less than 12.75v after it has had a few hours use.

If that 12.75 volts is taken later, ie after the battery has been charged, then your post is probably the answer. Even although the voltage shows fully charged, the battery has lost its capacity.

I'll just crawl back under my rock then.:oops:

 
No, no spruce, you read it right the first time. The reading of 12.75 was immediately after the controller said 9.5 with no charging in between.

I put the multimeter on it this morning after it had rested for 4+ hours after charging and it was 13.7.

 
Exact same controller as mine. I have had problem after problem with what seemed like battery, pump, and water-flow problems...after 3 years of new batteries, pumps etc I found my bloody problem to be the filter (which I didn't even know there was one) in the tank itself was stuffed with loose manufacturing plastic shavings. Check that filter is clear anyway.

Good luck! I know what a nightmare it can be.

 
Thanks, I'll have a check in the filter too then.

Took the cover off the controller today to have a little look:

8da99a7bb7d86b97eaaa233e0b18a5d5.jpg


I can't see anything wrong there. Am I missing anything?

 
Is the battery fully charged? Is the charger doing its job correctly? My faulty charger was saying the battery was charged when in fact it only had enough power for most of the day.

 
I found the picture of your setup I was looking for. Took a while though.

I don't like those battery clamps and would also look at the positive joiner on the cable from the battery. I would assume that you have a similar joiner on the negative cable.

View attachment 5175

 

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