I really want to write a little series of articles that, when combined, show a couple points that bug the crap out of me. But…I’m really not sure on where to start. Let me touch on the general points first, then maybe a starting point will manifest.

 

 

 

 

Points to Ponder –

• You gotta know a bunch of stuff to go off-grid and/or work a homestead…or you need to be willing and able to learn.
• Businesses are usually stupid…or don’t really care that much about their customers.
• The simplest solution is usually the best/right solution.
• There are some really great products out there…but they are usually really well hidden.
• Don’t ever trust salesmen.
• Mother nature rules…and can trash mankind whenever she wants.
• Trying to be self-sufficient is a pain in the a$$…and expen$sive.

Yeah, you kinda get an idea of just how frustrated I might be?

Let me start all the way back at the beginning…

We bought our place 10 years ago…and I can’t express how grateful we are for God bringing us here. Fortunately for us it already had a well on it. Yup, that is an expensive necessity around these parts. Once we closed on the place I contacted a local well company to pull the pump and test the well…and refurb it if needed. We got lucky…the well was in great shape and needed no work on it.

There was no power at the well to run the pump and the pump, although working fine, was 30 years old and 220vAC. I went to a then local well supply house, outlined my situation, they recommended a new pump set-up, and we bought it. I installed it myself a couple years later and all was fine…till we needed to irrigate the garden, yard, and small orchard.

So we found out…not enough storage, not enough pump flow, WAY inconvenient to use a generator to run the pump…just not the right way to supply our water needs. So again, I contacted a now local solar business guy that I was friends with for advice. “Solar pump!!!” was his suggestion and he supplied me a quote. More money than we wanted to spend…but it “would cure our problems.”

I installed it myself and all was good…kinda. We weren’t getting the flow we needed (amount of water pumped out of the well) and we could only run the well during the day when the sun was shinning. And then disaster struck…a thunderstorm. “ZAP!!” A nearby lightening strike took out the well control module. It was under warranty but we had to send it in. Ahhhhhh…it would take at least a week, probably two, to get it back. Solution from the company…”buy a back-up controller”. Another $500 down the drain…but we kept on pumping.

Turns out that when the nearby lightening strike hit there was transient voltage that spread out towards our place and was absorbed by the signal wire between the well control module and the storage tank’s float switch…700’ in between. The hit wasn’t bad enough to show any damage on the controller’s circuit board…but enough voltage to kill the display board which in-turn killed the operational ability of the module.

Transient voltage refers to quick and very temporary spikes in electrical voltage, 
typically lasting only a few milliseconds. The spikes can be caused by near-by lightning strikes, 
switching operations, or electrical faults. And they can potentially damage sensitive electronic 
equipment such as circuit boards.

Float switch is a unit that floats in the water tank and tells the well pump 
when to turn on and send water to the tank and when to turn the well pump off
so the tank doesn’t overflow. 
Basically, and on/off switch controlled by the water level.

So a little time goes on and we expanded the orchard and garden and yard…now way too little water to irrigate. So, another storage tank. Fortunately a decent and reputable local company gave us a deal, installed the tank myself, back in business with plenty of water to irrigate.

Another thunderstorm…we noticed tanks overflowing sometimes. Three months of troubleshooting later…problems with the new well control module. Yeah, from you know what. Fixed it ourselves…back in business. Well, kinda. (no pun intended). We still had a problem getting enough water to irrigate the orchard, garden, berry patches, grass, and the new pine trees. Began a slow process to think about a better solution.

Another thunderstorm with a near-by lightening strike…a dead well control module…the new module now dead. No problem, I had a back-up on the shelf (the original control module), installed it, contacted the company, they said send in the dead unit. Turns out the unit was dead as a door nail…completely bricked. $500 down the drain. And the control module now on the well was the “repaired” unit from the first lightening strike and was/is limping along on borrowed time.

Fed up with the situation I decided I better get thoroughly educated on all aspects of the solar well set-ups and what exactly was causing our problems. Two months later I finally had a handle on it. The problems:

• The well control modules were getting zapped by transient voltage from nearby lightening strikes.
• That transient voltage was coming in through the 700’ of buried signal wire between the storage tanks’ float switch and the well. Basically the wire was acting as an antenna collecting the voltage and shooting it into the electronic circuit board inside the well control module.
• No off-the-shelf solution was available that wasn’t cost prohibitive. Meaning…at a least couple thousand dollars to install an applicable and reliable solution.

But…here is the ugly part(s)…

• The original local dealer sold us a pump that didn’t meet our water supply needs when he could have if he had simply listened to us when we talked about the well depth, water needs, etc.
• AND…the same dealer sold us that control module that was completely unneeded. There was a much less expensive and far simpler way to control the well pump.
• When we worked directly with the pump manufacturer, who sold us the 2^nd control module directly, they sold it when it was completely unneeded. Again, there was a much less expensive and far simpler way to control the well pump.
• Neither the local dealer or the manufacturer had any solution for our situation.

But is gets worse. I accepted the situation for what is was and knew I had to figure out a solution myself…so the research began. I found a wireless float switch that would eliminate the 700’ of signal wire that was collecting the lightening transient voltage…$800. But there still a problem with the well control module and it was going to breakdown at some point. Along with that bad news was some really good news…the pump itself was very high quality and had really great options. However, the control module we had/have couldn’t access those truly useful options.

Yes, I ordered the wireless float switch. Wanna hear some irony? 
The box with the new equipment arrived, a week after I made the purchase. 
I made time to start work installing it on the existing module for a test run. 
I set-up my camera to video the unboxing to post later. 
I pulled out the first two pieces of equipment...ah, that was all there was. 
The antennas, the tank probe, and some hardware were all missing!

Fortunately, I had the video. 
I called the company, explained the situation, told them about the video, 
and the really great customer service person created an order for the missing parts.
 They shipped the next morning.

A very awesome and needed option for the pump was…for basic operation the pump could run off solar panels or a generator very easily with nothing special needing to be done. The current well control module had no ability to implement that option. But, the well control module had options that meant absolutely nothing to me and were completely unneeded. After weeks of research, and a dozen emails back and forth to the “manufacturer” (turns out they were a distributor) I now understood how the pump worked, options for operation, and basically how it functioned overall. Interestingly enough…the pump itself was not “made” by the manufacturer, it actually was made in Italy and then private labeled by this company in Arizona.

The part that ticked me off the most…I could have had more than twice the pump/flow rate with the same type and quality of pump if the local guy had known what he was doing. He sold us a pump for a 750’ deep well vs. a pump for a 220’ well. Another model of that pump provides more than twice the flow rate for the same money for a 300’ well. Nothing I can do about that now…just move on.

So here is what I needed/wanted to control my well:

1. Earlier in the day pumping and more water in the storage tanks during the summer months.
2. A safe and reliable way to control the pump.
3. An easy way to be able to run the well from the solar panels or a generator.
4. A reasonable and realistic way to protect a control module and the well pump from lightening strikes.

Obviously there is no way to protect from a direct lightening strike, at least one that is affordable, but I could expect protection from the transient voltage issues that was burning out the existing control modules.

PROBLEM!!!! I couldn’t find anything to fit those requirements…nothing!

Come on…was I being unreasonable? I can’t be the first guy to run into this. And, it isn’t complicated. One limiting factor was my existing pump…I was stuck with it and its limiting flow rate. To replace it was simply too expensive. So I had to figure this out on my own. And I did!

I will write another article on what I am building for a solution…but, that isn’t the point of this article. Here I just want to point out the back-story and the lessons learned. I will do a “Part #2” that will be the lessons learned. Part #3 will be the overall solution to the problems/issues/challenges.

 

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• Our Solar Well Pump System

 

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