Hi,
Had to repair an underground leak yesterday. The well pump was probably running for a few days as I don't get out to that shed all that often. I hate to think what the power bill will look like for this month with 11A x 240v x 7 days.
The well head shed is about 100 yards from the house and not visible through the trees. I'd like some suggestions on monitoring it's on- times. I thought of using a baby monitor but they don't have the Tx- distance to the house.
Thoughts please guys?
Dave
Wire a flood light in parallel to the pump and point it at your house?
A klaxon?
Get a light timer with an electromechanical movement. Wire a plug to give you 110 whenever the pump is on, and plug the timer into that. Then see how much the timer advances every day.
The high-tech way would be to put a data logger in the pump house, with a wireless ethernet connection that you could query any time you wanted to, from the comfort of your room. Setting it up would take about 100 times as much money and at least ten times as much time as you'd spend with the electromechanical 24-hour timer that you check every day when you get the paper.
-- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com Do you need to implement control loops in software? "Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you. See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
On a sunny day (Wed, 6 Oct 2010 10:12:26 -0700 (PDT)) it happened "Dave, I can't do that" wrote in :
Every month they test those air raid alarms here, big whoooo whooo whooo. Just an idea :-)
If the power supply to the pump shed comes into the house (or nearby) you could monitor the current with a cheap clamp-on power monitor. These often have a short range wireless link, so the display could be in the comfort of your house even if the nearest power monitoring point is in a nearby outbuilding.
(These do need to be clamped onto a single conductor, not the whole cable.)
John
Power comes from the house? Put a CT on the branch circuit. Put a burden resistor, rectifier and comparator on the CT secondary and adjust it such that the pump running amps will turn on an indicator.
Lots of fancy stuff can be added, like monitoring the motor start and run currents to signal impending problems, total run time, etc.
-- Paul Hovnanian paul@hovnanian.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Have gnu, will travel.
A rather simple thing to do is to buy a pressure gauge that fits onto a hose bib. They are not expensive and can be bought at hardware stores. They also have Y-adapters with litte turn-off thingies so you don't lose that hose connection if needed. Or screw in a T-adapter in the loo, the one that's used the most.
Anyhow, must be at a location in or around the house with reasonably high foot traffic, where people see it regularly. After a while one develops a 6th sense for things like that. "Wait a minute, why is it reading so low all day?"
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
Why is the back yard flooded? Or at my neighbor's house... why is water coming out from under your garage door?
Or like I told another neighbor, "Did you know a portion of your roof has caved in ?:-) " ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I can see November from my house :-)
Or like what happened to owners of a small hotel. Ring-ring ... ring-ring ... "Hello?" ... "Hi, this is Leroy, a mile down the river. I found a whole deck in my yard and it sure looks like it's yours".
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
At the old house, after a tornado went thru, I found a big chunk of a neighbor's roof in my pool. Neighbor's house was almost 4 blocks away :-( ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I can see November from my house :-)
Even simpler than the electromechanical timer would be the plug-in electromechanical clock - though the timer might be easier to find these days. Try a junk shoppe.
I have a current (and voltage and wattage and power factor) monitor on my pump, because I'm interested enough to blow a few bucks doing that, and I suspect it might give me warning near end of life (currents rising as bearings start to go) - it does not totalize, but it does give an in the house indication that the pump is running. Of course, the pressure switch is in the house, so it's easy to wire the monitor in the house - more difficult if the pressure switch is in a shed away from the house, depending how power is routed (might be simple enough if the well-shed power comes from the house.) Cost about $70 - Murata ACM20. A much simpler/cheaper indication (as Tim already pointed out) could be given by running a pilot light (or an outside light - I actually considered putting a "yard light" on the wellhead for pretty much this purpose) that is on when the pump is on.
-- Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
I actually started by suggesting an electromechanical clock, then realized that (a) you can't get them any more, and (b) they roll over after 12 hours accumulated time, where a timer rolls over after 24.
-- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com Do you need to implement control loops in software? "Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you. See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
Well, sure you can still get them. Is 168 hours gonna be enough? Under six bucks:
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
Doesn't somebody still sell coffee timers? All you'd have to do is plug it in, and check how far it's rotated in a given day. You _would_ have to check it every day.
Ah-HA!! Found One!
Cheers! Rich
They used to be taller, and cost only 3.99. ;-)
Cheers! Rich
$14.99
-- Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is enough left over to pay them.
Dave, I can't do that schrieb:
Hello,
there are cheap simple counters for hours of operation time. You see them build in some machines like pumps. Just ad such a counter to your pump and write the numbers in a notebook every week or month. If the power line to the shed is coming from your house, you may build a circuits monitoring the current and connecting 120 V to the counter whenever the pump is working. Just start with a counter in the shed and think about transmission to the house later.
Bye
An indirect way that has the additional benefit of typically saving 10% of your electricity bill is to monitor the entire house current consumption in realtime using one of the clamp on wireless OWL meters (or a more modern PC connectable logging version).
I expect they do a version for US voltages.
11A x 240 at ~3kW base load will stick out like a sore thumb unless you have electric storage radiators from the days of white hot technology with nuclear electricity promising to be "too cheap to meter".Regards, Martin Brown
Dave, If we had a bit more info the group would probably find a neat solution. Does the pump power come from the circuit breaker box in the house? Is the circuit breaker box in an area that you see on a regular basis? In my home I would slip a current transformer over the wire that runs from the breaker to the pump. I would pick the proper burden resistor, or load and let this power an LED on the wall or cover of my breaker box. It would help to know the approximate current of your pump to size the current transformer. MikeK
That would be the professional method, can be installed permanently. However, you'd have to add the cost of a small transformer, fuse and such because these are usually made for 24V/48V gear. Maybe a doorbell transformer works.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
Carrying that a bit farther, use the detection of current to trigger a one-shot set to run for some long period. The period would be a maximum time you expect the pump to run, maybe one hour or so. It would depend on the storage reservoir and your water demand. Iff the one-shot times out while the pump is running, trigger an acoustic alarm. If the pump stops before the timeout, then reset the one-shot.
This could be done with a low power design and just power it with a battery. Maybe someone could do the code for a PIC. I can't imagine it taking more then 10 minutes to write the program.
tm
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