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Water pump 'clicky' noise, problem?

krys

New member
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8
Sup guys, its Krys.

I went to Gardiner pole systems.co.uk and bought theirs 100psi water pump and plugged it into my trolley system.

But when i turn everything on it seems to work fine, i got nice steady flow no problems, but the noise that is coming out of the water pump is concerning me, i have little knowledge about how water pumps supposed to work.

Its like constant repeating clicky noise, i have liquid logic controller with flow rate setting at 20, if i increase it to about 80-90+ the clicky noise is gone but obviously i cant work at this rate since my 25l barrel will be gone in seconds.

I do use a strainer between my barrel and pump.

From barrel to strainer i have 8id hose, from strainer to pump i have 5id hose, and from pump to my pole i have 5id hose. And the barrel is raised above the 'pump-is-a-box' setup.

If anyone does know if the clicky noise is right or not i would be very grateful for help.

Thank you.

 
Thanks for reply Peter.

I have tried that, i had calibration at 20, 40, 50, 70, and trying to combine with different flow rates but no change. I dont really understand what calibration does to be fair.

 
If I understand correctly Krys, you say you have a stretch of 5mm ID hose before the pump on the inlet side. This might cause a problem as the pump would struggle to suck water through 5mm hose. I stand to be corrected here but I would say from barrel to pump you'd best use a hose with a minimum of 8mm ID all the way. I used 8mm mini bore on my trolley even when I was using the 100 psi Sureflo pump with no problems.

The clicking sound is probably the pressure switch on the pump kicking in, though why it would do it on a low flow rate and less so on a high flow rate I don't understand. I would have thought it would be the other way around. Unless it's something to do with an imbalance caused by the small bore hose before the pump.

I'm probably talking complete nonsense so I'm going to shut up and go away, but not before suggesting you change that short piece of 5mm ID hose before your pump with an 8mm ID piece and see if that sorts it.

Best wishes Krys

 
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Sup guys, its Krys.I went to Gardiner pole systems.co.uk and bought theirs 100psi water pump and plugged it into my trolley system.

But when i turn everything on it seems to work fine, i got nice steady flow no problems, but the noise that is coming out of the water pump is concerning me, i have little knowledge about how water pumps supposed to work.

Its like constant repeating clicky noise, i have liquid logic controller with flow rate setting at 20, if i increase it to about 80-90+ the clicky noise is gone but obviously i cant work at this rate since my 25l barrel will be gone in seconds.

I do use a strainer between my barrel and pump.

From barrel to strainer i have 8id hose, from strainer to pump i have 5id hose, and from pump to my pole i have 5id hose. And the barrel is raised above the 'pump-is-a-box' setup.

If anyone does know if the clicky noise is right or not i would be very grateful for help.

Thank you.
Hi Krys

It sounds like it could be the internal bypass kicking in repeatedly as the pump is set at such a low flow rate, coupled with a restricted feed source. Ideally the feed tube should be 3/8" or 1/2" size tubing - changing this may help.

 
Hi Alex, I have tried this setup too. I have 1/2" garden hose from my barrel feeding straight into pump. I dont know maybe the pump is faulty, i have little knowledge about pumps. I will write email to gardiner for replacement or something because it does not sound right to me. Its really loud even with the box lid on.

 
Hi Krys

So with a straight 1/2" feed and open pumping out it still clicks?

If so give our Customer Service team a call on 01726 66400 and explain this and we can arrange for it to be returned for testing & replacement.

 
Hi Alex, thanks for reply.

I have rewired everything from scratch. I have moved strainer away from the pump, before it was just at the pump water feed and now is sort of in the middle of the water feed pipe. And it does not click anymore, only when i switch the water valve off it clicks couple times and shuts off, so I guess @Marko067 was right about the pressure switch kicking in. I dont know why though the strainer could cause any problems being so close to the pump.

But now why is the pump 'beeping' like every 2 seconds when i switch off my valve? Shouldnt the pump switch off completely? Is that how it should work? Oh yeah and btw the controller constantly shows 'dead end' message when valve is switched off. It everything done right?

Here is the picture of how the wiring looks like:

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It began to click again dang, it was not clicking for a bit tho. The setup now is: From barrel to pump: 8mm id hose (except for two angle adapters which are i think 5mm id) and strainer in the middle then from pump to brush: 5mm id hose.

Should from pump to pole be hose with bigger internal diameter?

Thanks a lot everyone for advice, i really appreciate it.

 
Have you tried to recalibrate the controller as Alex suggested?

Also wonder if that battery is capable of running a pump at 4.5 to 6 amps.

 
How do i recalibrate the controller? The instruction does not say anything about recalibrating..

The baterry i have is ultramax 12v 9ah 20c, i have been told its fine to use with this pump.

 
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If you look carefully on the pump you will see a figure of 10 amps at 80psi. That means that under load your pump is going to draw 10 amps.

Your battery is rated at 9 ah so theoretically it will be flat after an hour's usage if it hasn't overheated and cooked itself in the process. A controller will reduce the amount of current the pump draws. Our Shurflo pumps draw around 4.5 amps at our normal flow rate. If that so with the Spring and Gardiner pump combo, then you battery will be flat in 2 hours.

However, if your pump runs for 50% of the time cleaning windows then you have 4 hours of cleaning.

This is all theoretical so probably halve those times as you should never flatten your battery.

Your battery is too small.

You need to be looking at 27 to 36 amp battery imho.

You will notice that backpacks that use smaller batteries use smaller pumps that don't use as much power as they don't need to do as much work.

 
Apologies if you have already tried this.

Have you connected your pump using an elbow that doesn't restrict the flow so much on the intake side of the pump. I know you said you tried it with half inch hose but with the small bore elbow it would not have made a great deal of difference. The flow into the pump needs to be as unrestricted as possible.

As spruce says though that is a big pump for such a small battery. I use a 5lpm pump that has a max draw of 6 amps. I run it at a little over 50% most of the time and I get a solid day of residential work out of a 7ah battery.

 
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I have plugged the pump to a bigger, 70ah leisure battery and it now runs smooth, no clicky/rattle noise and it is visible that the performance improved, before i had it running at flow rate 35-40 setting in controller and it was draining water like crazy, now i can have the same (workable) water pressure at setting 12-15 which is good i guess. I have done three hours of work with it today and all seems ok so i guess the battery was the problem.

 
I have plugged the pump to a bigger, 70ah leisure battery and it now runs smooth, no clicky/rattle noise and it is visible that the performance improved, before i had it running at flow rate 35-40 setting in controller and it was draining water like crazy, now i can have the same (workable) water pressure at setting 12-15 which is good i guess. I have done three hours of work with it today and all seems ok so i guess the battery was the problem.
I'm glad you got to the bottom of the problem.

-

 
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