B/W Controls for a submersible pump

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ptonsparky said:
You need the entire control that BW has. You can’t just connect 120 volt to one probe wire and expect it to pass enough current through the water then back up via second probe wire to the coil of your new contactor. Not that simple or there would be no need for BWs controls.

500 foot of rise is a lot. I suspect somewhat less.
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Looking at a topo map you are right, it appears to be ~200 feet of rise.
 
sw_ross said:
Here's an edited version of the pic of the wiring diagram, trying to make it clearer.

View attachment 20982

I need to look at the setup more to understand which one is used...

Also, not sure if the "4-54" is a date or what...

I'll stop by there this morning to look at the setup closer.
Thanks for the help! I've never encountered this type of setup before and just wondering how to bring it up to date.
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4-54 probably a date the label was last updated.

Now that I can see it better it is a three wire control, terminal 5 is for the lower probe, terminal 8 is for the upper probe, and terminal 9 is the common, and as drawn uses ground as the associated probe.

Your controller is likely a "pump down" setup. When water reaches upper probe it turns on the output, there is likely an internal holding circuit that isn't shown, when water falls below the lower probe it stops the output.

only reason I can see to have such a controller is you must have a well that can't produce water as fast as the pump can take it away, so it shuts down to allow well to fill up again rather then run the pump dry.

Good chance the "probes" are nothing more than exposed end of conductor each just dangling at a different level in the well casing.
 
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These are good controls, the world has moved on to other ways of doing things, but they are simple and bulletproof. My farm house has a very similar setup but with a newer controller and cistern due to low well output. Some tips from my experience:

Hard water deposits will coat probes and eventually shrink seals so that conductors corrode away, so check those.
You can use an additional probe as the neutral return path, and it's probably required if your tank and piping aren't metal. It's very reliable that way.
If you need new wiring, B/W sells submersible wiring, probes and kits in various configurations for cheap. We just suspend the probes and hang them in the tank. Makes level adjustments easy and wiring is very thin compared with pump wire.
Make sure wiring around contacts in the enclosure doesn't interfere with their physical movement. It's easy to think something is faulty when it is just blocked from working right. Ditto for dirt, etc.
Make sure that you have the right voltage for the probes, it depends on the makeup of the water and it's hardness.
A new B/W controller may well mount right up to the existing enclosure if you want to swap.

That's my two cents. I'd be interested to hear how you end up doing this. I went with this system again as it had worked well for 50 years and we just wanted additional functions. But my industrial/controls knowledge is about 50 years behind, since that is what I see and work on with basic farm systems here. Seems like every time I try to modernize it ends up being more expensive, complex and lesser quality than copying the original. :blink:
 
Clodbuster said:
These are good controls, the world has moved on to other ways of doing things, but they are simple and bulletproof. My farm house has a very similar setup but with a newer controller and cistern due to low well output. Some tips from my experience:

Hard water deposits will coat probes and eventually shrink seals so that conductors corrode away, so check those.
You can use an additional probe as the neutral return path, and it's probably required if your tank and piping aren't metal. It's very reliable that way.
If you need new wiring, B/W sells submersible wiring, probes and kits in various configurations for cheap. We just suspend the probes and hang them in the tank. Makes level adjustments easy and wiring is very thin compared with pump wire.
Make sure wiring around contacts in the enclosure doesn't interfere with their physical movement. It's easy to think something is faulty when it is just blocked from working right. Ditto for dirt, etc.
Make sure that you have the right voltage for the probes, it depends on the makeup of the water and it's hardness.
A new B/W controller may well mount right up to the existing enclosure if you want to swap.

That's my two cents. I'd be interested to hear how you end up doing this. I went with this system again as it had worked well for 50 years and we just wanted additional functions. But my industrial/controls knowledge is about 50 years behind, since that is what I see and work on with basic farm systems here. Seems like every time I try to modernize it ends up being more expensive, complex and lesser quality than copying the original. :blink:
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His probes are just leads hanging inside well casing, with earth being the "common" or "tank" lead.
 
Dzboyce said:
Replace the entire BW control set up with a Pump Saver or Cycle Sensor. They sense the drop In amperage when the water level drops to the pump intake. They then shut the Pump down for a user selected amount of time. No probes in the well.

https://cyclestopvalves.com/collections/cycle-sensor-pump-monitors

http://m.littelfuse.com/products/pr...on-relays/motor-and-pump-protection/233p.aspx
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Question- looking at the wiring diagram for the littlefuse relay it shows a pressure switch, this setup doesn't have a pressure switch to turn on/off pump. Do you think that would be a problem?
 
ActionDave said:
You need something to tell the well pump to come on. You could substitute a float switch or timer.
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Unless I’m misunderstanding things, reading the literature (granted I’ve only read a summary of how it works), it appears that the relay senses a change in the current draw of the motor and interprets that change as a depletion of water in the well, shutting off the motor.
 
sw_ross said:
Unless I’m misunderstanding things, reading the literature (granted I’ve only read a summary of how it works), it appears that the relay senses a change in the current draw of the motor and interprets that change as a depletion of water in the well, shutting off the motor.
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That's correct, that's what I meant by pump minder in my first post, but a pressure switch is just a switch to get the pump started then the electronics take over.
 
ActionDave said:
That's correct, that's what I meant by pump minder in my first post, but a pressure switch is just a switch to get the pump started then the electronics take over.
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I see what you're saying.

This is at a State Park that is open seasonally. There's a maintenance person that shows for work. He would manually (disconnect switch) turn on the pump, even though it had these sensors that he wasn't aware of.

The pump would operate (starting and stopping the pump motor based on input from sensors). They would let it run until the cistern was full and then "manually" turn off the pump at the disconnect switch.

They only needed to do this about once every couple of weeks. There is no pressure tank/switch.

In place of a pressure switch could you use a 2-pole switch to turn on the pump? Then the relay would turn the pump motor on and off based on available water in the well.

The literature in some of those links make it sound like you can program it to be off for a set amount of time, then it would turn on again.
 
sw_ross said:
I see what you're saying.

This is at a State Park that is open seasonally. There's a maintenance person that shows for work. He would manually (disconnect switch) turn on the pump, even though it had these sensors that he wasn't aware of.

The pump would operate (starting and stopping the pump motor based on input from sensors). They would let it run until the cistern was full and then "manually" turn off the pump at the disconnect switch.

They only needed to do this about once every couple of weeks. There is no pressure tank/switch.

In place of a pressure switch could you use a 2-pole switch to turn on the pump? Then the relay would turn the pump motor on and off based on available water in the well.

The literature in some of those links make it sound like you can program it to be off for a set amount of time, then it would turn on again.
Click to expand...
A manual switch is fine and the time delay is the length of time between starts, 5 min, 15, min, an hour, whatever it takes to get a decent amount of water in the well.
 
Ok, I’m Confused. Of course that does take much.

are the BW probes in the well or in the cistern?

If they are in the well, their purpose is to turn the pump off when the water level in the WELL drops too low.

If they are in the cistern, their purpose is to turn the pump in the well on and off to keep the reservior full. These are two separate control systems. I have used BW controls for both types of control. I actually still have BW controls in a 20,000 gallon tank at my shop. It’s a very simple and almost foolproof system for reservior level control.

I haven’t seen BW probes in a well since the 1980’s. Now days we are going to use a pump saver type control to turn the pump off if the water level drops to the pump intake. On community water or municipal systems, quite often we will run 1” or 1 1/4” pvc pipe down the well and place a transducer in the sounding pipe. Then we will tie that transducer into the VFD controls and it will keep the pump from overpumping the well. The downhole transducer will slow the pump down to keep from drawing the pumping level down farther than desired.
 
Sensors in well, not cistern

Sensors in well, not cistern

The sensors are in the well, not the cistern. I looked at the cistern today. There's no power there. It's 26,000 gallons. Once they get it full it last them up to 3 weeks or so.
 
Dzboyce said:
Ok, I’m Confused. Of course that does take much.

are the BW probes in the well or in the cistern?

If they are in the well, their purpose is to turn the pump off when the water level in the WELL drops too low.

If they are in the cistern, their purpose is to turn the pump in the well on and off to keep the reservior full. These are two separate control systems. I have used BW controls for both types of control. I actually still have BW controls in a 20,000 gallon tank at my shop. It’s a very simple and almost foolproof system for reservior level control.

I haven’t seen BW probes in a well since the 1980’s. Now days we are going to use a pump saver type control to turn the pump off if the water level drops to the pump intake. On community water or municipal systems, quite often we will run 1” or 1 1/4” pvc pipe down the well and place a transducer in the sounding pipe. Then we will tie that transducer into the VFD controls and it will keep the pump from overpumping the well. The downhole transducer will slow the pump down to keep from drawing the pumping level down farther than desired.
Click to expand...
We have pretty good aquifer here, so never seen such sensing in a well before. Have used other B/W controllers though for tank level detection and pumping contols, even just for high or low level indication, or high/low level lockout on some machines/processes. Don't recall the model we commonly used but was for both pump up and pump down applications, just had to move some leads around to configure it the opposite way.
 
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