Irrigation Pump

[Dairyspark]

I received your emails thank you very much and I also got an email back from the company with an answer of, all we can do for you is send our engineer to look at it for a cost of £308+vat and then any parts and labour after that are charged separately, so I'm not sure even if I diagnosed what was wrong with it that they would then supply the parts to me lol

 

[Sidewinder]

If you can diagnose the fault, many of us can get the parts, I've never had that from Grundfos, (industrial) but, I've not dealt with them for a few years.

Let them get on with it, shadow the guy on the ground, you'll learn a lot, and it's not your money, golf clubs are loaded, use it as a learning job, and just do the arranging with the clubs permission, to save them their labour costs on that, you'll get that value back in experience.

Most service guys are really helpful once they get on to site.

 

[Dairyspark]

I'd very much like to take the motor off and have a look at to however as it's an after work job I don't have the time but if they are willing to wait then I'll do it, and if possible I'd like to shadow the engineer, I do the same with the commissioning engineer from MTU and 90% of the time he gets me to do the work which is great I'll keep your up to date with what happens thanks for all the help, much appreciated as always

 

[Marvo]

I spoke to one of my pump suppliers about something today and asked him to have a look at your photographs. He laughed, it's not the kinda thing that's popular in this neck of the woods.

Apparently this a high efficiency pump that has a special class of high efficiency motor so you can't just fit a standard Grundfos motor as a replacement.

The speed control inverter also can monitor bearing condition and can be programmed as auto constant pressure or auto constant volume if it's set up with the required extraneous transducers. It stores the last causes of failure or alarm in its memory but you need a special plug in interrogation unit to read them unless it has a remote infra red controller in the office or plant room in which case you can also read them on that as well. The inverter can also be set up as dry run protection and can monitor phase angle and alarm accordingly.

TBH, if it was my problem and the inverter wasn't being used for constant control with transducers I'd check for obvious trip or fuse issues with the inverter and if it's something complicated I'd remove and go DOL. Run the basic motor winding tests and check the bearings are smooth. I'd run it and check the pump cycle times under normal operation during the irrigation cycle and if they were within the spec of the motor I'd leave it at that. Maybe just for a laugh I'd get a quote from the agents for a diagnostic visit and replacement inverter and offer it to the customer as an option.

Edit..Obviously make sure there's dry run protection, if not then just add some.

 

[Dairyspark]

Nothing like an easy job

 

[Dairyspark]

Hi again everyone, after taking the control unit off and testing the motor, the motor is perfectly fine and the cause of the fault was really bad corrosion inside the control unit, thanks for all the advice, I'll post a photo of the finish item when I'm done and you can judge my work haha

Cheers

Bobby

 

[binky]

so the pump house needs a small heater to stop condensation.....£££

 

[Dairyspark]

A roof on the bloody thing might help haha

 

[binky]

I do roofs, but it's a bit of a trek from Devon :^O

 

[Marvo]

Hi again everyone, after taking the control unit off and testing the motor, the motor is perfectly fine and the cause of the fault was really bad corrosion inside the control unit, thanks for all the advice, I'll post a photo of the finish item when I'm done and you can judge my work haha

Cheers

Bobby

Glad you found the problem, did you manage to salvage the controller by cleaning it up? Maybe some spray-on conformal coating to prevent a reoccurrence in future. http://za.rs-online.com/web/p/conformal-coatings/0494714/

 

[Dairyspark]

Sadly not marvo, it was that bad that components were falling off due to corrosion

 

[Sidewinder]

So it seems like the original designer and/or installer mucked up then?

 

[Andy™]

or the gardeners have thrown everything at it and broke the case, and didnt fix the leaking roof above it?

 

[Marvo]

That's a shame, Grundfos stuff is normally well made and pretty immune to stupidity of installers and users. I guess DOL is the way forward if a like for like replacement controller isn't financially viable.

 

[Dairyspark]

It seems like they started to build a small outhouse for it and then gave up, 3 breeze block walls and roof spars but no sheeting on the roof, label in the motor said it was installed 2008 so Scottish rain and hellish weather for 7 years couldn't have been great for it haha