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Have I broken the pump

Petegx08

New member
Messages
4
Location
East Sussex
Hi

i have a water fed pole system in the back of my van running off a 12v battery. I took the battery off to charge and when replacing it I’ve wired the positive and negative the wrong way. Now it won’t work and when I turn it on it flashes low battery. I’ve changed the fuse, looked for melted wires and the battery has 13.5v in it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

regards

pete

C699F752-21F8-4D4C-A742-0B9C9760757C.jpeg

 
I would guess you have damaged the speed controller not the pump. You can wire the pump directly to the battery to test if the pump is working (best to use a fuse in +ve for safety) . If the pump runs it will run at full speed, so make sure your hose is open and you have water in the tank, it's not ideal to test a pump with a closed hose (shut off valve or univalve need to be open).

If you know anyone who can solder and is ok with electronics you could ask them to take a look as it might be a reverse protection diode that you blew, but it could have damaged the controller beyond economical repair. 

I would say quickest way to get back to work would be a new pump controller, as long as you tested pump first. A great pump controller is the Spring V16 that is rebadged and sold by many companies. It's fairly simple to connect as you have +ve and -ve to battery and 2 connections to pump plus this controller has reverse polarity protection. So even if you wire it round wrong way it wont destroy it's self.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

 
Hi

i have a water fed pole system in the back of my van running off a 12v battery. I took the battery off to charge and when replacing it I’ve wired the positive and negative the wrong way. Now it won’t work and when I turn it on it flashes low battery. I’ve changed the fuse, looked for melted wires and the battery has 13.5v in it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

regards

pete

View attachment 24170
Reverse Polarity has probably burnt out the board. Either a diode or triac has let the smoke out. Common problem with older generation controllers hence the R&D and release of the Spring V16.

There is no quick fix unless you hard wire it to run flat out off the battery or have another controller or electronic repair engineer close to you 

Austin 

Not sure @ched999uk & @Apw1210 are  our resident electronics geeks (meant with respect lads)
Thanks mate. Happily help others 

 
Thanks guys I’ll check the pump is still working then upgrade to a shiny new controller I think rather than getting this one repaired 

I’ll keep you posted

 
Thanks guys I’ll check the pump is still working then upgrade to a shiny new controller I think rather than getting this one repaired 

I’ll keep you posted
Some very helpful information for you.

If you intend on buying a brand new replacement controller I highly recommend the Spring Europe Ltd V16 as in your case it does feature Polarity Protect which is the new safety feature, if you get your wires crossed and connect positive to negative and negative to positive the controller will simply not function until the Polarity is correct 

It also runs smoother and does not drain your battery as much.

You'll find many big name suppliers will stock it under their own faceplate branding.

Kind regards Austin 

 
I’ve seen some controllers for around £40 so I’m struggling to warrant spending £100 on the one suggested. Times are tough at the moment so it might just be a cheap and cheerful one for now

 
I’ve seen some controllers for around £40 so I’m struggling to warrant spending £100 on the one suggested. Times are tough at the moment so it might just be a cheap and cheerful one for now
If times are tough get what will get you back earning. Might be worth marking battery terminals so you can't make same mistake again. Maybe mark the cables or cable tie them so they won't reach to wrong terminals and apply red tape to the +ve end of where the battery sits. Anything that helps you identify which is +ve.

Good luck.

 
Update

It fixed itself somehow and has been running fine since, expecting it to be temperamental so will probably upgrade the controller still at some point soon. A big thanks for all your help guys

 
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