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If you ever shorten/lengthen any of your hose’s you should recalibrate your controller ?
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Pump callibration
- Thread starter Larry joly
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Our Varistreams came calibrated for a Shurflo pump. This setting is "C" on the controller. (Our calibration setting go from 1 to 9 and then from A to F.) I set controller No2 that son uses to "C". When he switches his Univalve off the pump continues to run for a short time later until "C" is reached. At the moment of the controller switching the pump off, the pump is drawing 6 amps. I reset the controller to "A" and the controller cut the flow sooner with the pump drawing just 4 amps. "A" is still enough pressure at his flow to clean windows without the pump starting to pulse. In fact I could reduce that setting to "9" in summer and save a little more battery power. When the water gets colder I will have to recalibrate the controller.
I could leave the setting at "C" and never change it. That will suffice for both winter and summer cleaning but I will be using more current.
Setting it at a lower setting means we are saving battery power and also reducing wear and tear on the pump and hose fittings.
If I left both controllers at "C" I would be using an extra 4 amps each time we switched the Univalve off. Now that isn't a big deal per day for a van mount with a 110amp battery, but the cleaner who is using a trolley with a small capacity battery needs to save every bit of energy he can.
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Forgive me if I'm being thick here guys but what does calibrating the pump actually do? As in what does setting it to 35 or 99 actually mean... I understand all the points about cold and warm water and hose lengths (how far you need to pump etc) I just don't get what the actual calibration does.
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That's just altering the flow, will leave the technical stuff of pushing 2 buttons at the same time and putting it up to 70 from 65 to people that can actually tell you the correct terminology
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Yeah but pressing up and down alters the flow, I'm making an educated guess that calibration decides what the numbers on the screen mean, If this is right I don't understand how you select what numbers to calibrate it to.
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On mine you actually press 2 at the same time and, I think, the factory setting is circa 65. You then raise or lower it depending. It isn't the same numbers regarding flow.
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On Spring variant and Varistream controllers we have a flow setting and a pressure setting.
The first mode you have on your controller is a flow rate setting @P4dstar. The higher the numbers on the screen the faster the flow. Spring contollers divide that flow rate into 100 segments. Unfortunately, users get confused and call these pressure settings because they have a 100psi water pump.
(Flow and pressure aren't the same but are related. The more pressure you put on the water the faster the water flow.)
Then you have the second mode 'behind' the flow setting. This is the calibration mode. Its basically a pressure setting. Your pump has a manual pressure switch build in. Shurflo set their pumps at 100psi. When the pump builds up pressure to 100psi the microswitch inside the housing cuts power to the motor and the pump stops.
Your controller hasn't got a manual pressure switch. But it has got a callibration setting which is an electrical pressure switch that you can set to whatever pressure cut off you choose.
Spring controllers have an auto calibration as well as a manual calibration setting where our Varistreams only have a manual setting.
What these controllers do is work on how much current or electrical energy the pump is drawing. Your motor draws current in amps. The harder the motor has to work the more power is used. Its similar to riding a bicycle on an flat road and then up a steep hill. Reducing this calibration setting saves battery current when you switch the flow off. Dropping down 2 settings saves 2 amps of battery power in our case. So I reduced the 'pressure' setting on the controller my son was using meant that the controller switched off when the pump drew 4 amps. The previous pressure setting or calibration setting switched the pump off at 6amps.
The limit of 4 amps of power is more than sufficient from him to have the flow of water at the brush head he needs to clean windows.
With warmer water in the summer our hoses expand more than they do in winter with cold water. So we need to reduce the pressure to reduce this expansion.
We use minibore and notice this expansion (ballooning.) It could well be that using microbore will be different. (I have a roll of microbore waiting to be fitted.)
The first mode you have on your controller is a flow rate setting @P4dstar. The higher the numbers on the screen the faster the flow. Spring contollers divide that flow rate into 100 segments. Unfortunately, users get confused and call these pressure settings because they have a 100psi water pump.
(Flow and pressure aren't the same but are related. The more pressure you put on the water the faster the water flow.)
Then you have the second mode 'behind' the flow setting. This is the calibration mode. Its basically a pressure setting. Your pump has a manual pressure switch build in. Shurflo set their pumps at 100psi. When the pump builds up pressure to 100psi the microswitch inside the housing cuts power to the motor and the pump stops.
Your controller hasn't got a manual pressure switch. But it has got a callibration setting which is an electrical pressure switch that you can set to whatever pressure cut off you choose.
Spring controllers have an auto calibration as well as a manual calibration setting where our Varistreams only have a manual setting.
What these controllers do is work on how much current or electrical energy the pump is drawing. Your motor draws current in amps. The harder the motor has to work the more power is used. Its similar to riding a bicycle on an flat road and then up a steep hill. Reducing this calibration setting saves battery current when you switch the flow off. Dropping down 2 settings saves 2 amps of battery power in our case. So I reduced the 'pressure' setting on the controller my son was using meant that the controller switched off when the pump drew 4 amps. The previous pressure setting or calibration setting switched the pump off at 6amps.
The limit of 4 amps of power is more than sufficient from him to have the flow of water at the brush head he needs to clean windows.
With warmer water in the summer our hoses expand more than they do in winter with cold water. So we need to reduce the pressure to reduce this expansion.
We use minibore and notice this expansion (ballooning.) It could well be that using microbore will be different. (I have a roll of microbore waiting to be fitted.)
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Ian Sheppard
Well-known member
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- Crowborough
Flow rate of 28 is no problem neither is a flow rate of 60, Each system will run at different rates and in honesty every one has a preferred flow rate that suits the system, work site Ect.
