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Water Issues - Need Help

P

PureCountry

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 25, 2005
Messages
2,684
Location
Edgewood, BC, moving to Hardisty, AB
I'm getting slightly past the point of frustration with our water system. We built a reservoir on one pasture this summer, it's spring fed. Took our solar pump down there and set it up, it wouldn't pump high enough for the required lift, which is right around 13-14'. It's a Kelln Solar 12V/16amp unit, and instead of the 2 stock 6V batteries, I've been using 1 Deep Cycle/RV-Marine 12V the last few years without troubles.

Since it didn't want to pump the water high enough in this application, I hooked up a 2nd 12V battery in tandem - positive to positive, neg to neg. As soon as I turned the pump on, the water came gushing in the tank. After slight hoorays and celebrations, we went to get the cows, sure that we had nothing to worry about. We got the cows there on Friday after much hassle and running around - another story - they drank the tank down, and when the pump kicked in, it wouldn't bring the water high enough. Anybody have any thoughts on why it would do it once and not the 2nd time?

We brought the batteries home and put on trickle charge overnight, took them into the parts place in town and he tested them. One was putting out 12V the other 12.5V. The guy I bought the solar pump from says a 12V battery should be putting out 13.5 to 14 V at full charge. Any thoughts on that? I'd never heard of it.
 
PC, I've had to replace 2 different 12v vehicle batteries this summer. Both of the new batteries tested 13.5 volts when I picked them up from the parts store. If you can get close enough, you might try running jumper cables to the pump from your vehicle battery.
 
Yeah

12V batts at 12 volts are running low - your solar chargers are not doing the trick with them, or they are tired.

As for your plumbing and pumping - no help from me - I am a wind guy

Best to you

BC
 
Tried the jumper cables on the 2-battery setup, still didn't work. That makes me think the pump is suspect, but why in balzes did it work the first time if the pump's brushes are wearing out? Solar salesman has a pump I can try, to see if that's the problem. At this point I'm ready to trench in power and setup a Ritchie water bowl. I'm very fed-up with messing with this. Pumping water twice/day with a gas pump is a pain.
 
It's likely not the problem in this case PC but we hit a problem with our home built solar system this summer - everything seemed to indicate the pump wasn't working but it turned out the solar charge controller had got zapped due to a lightening strike hence the batteries couldn't recharge. The company I bought it from said most producers don't realize you need to ground the charge controller as they are apparently very sensitive to lightening hitting the ground nearby even. Live and learn - I thought I'd share that experience to save someone else finding out the hard way.
 
you know for what a solar deal costs for any amount of cattle you can put in a big steel tank with a cement floor and pump water once a week-my friend in plentywoiod has several of them-they all gravity feed from a big storage tank on a ridge-nothing worse than worrying about a solar deal working or not-I get enough of that with fencers.
 
Well PureCountry, I'm with ya! I got the waterline to the new barn hooked up today and have pressure at the first 4 outlets but not at the last 2 which are actually the ones I was planning to use!

Plus lots of leaks along the way. I used the blue, 1", 160 PSI pipe and man is it hard stuff to work with. Stiff and hard to get clamped down tight on the fittings.

I think I might have a dirt blockage in the line because it rained pretty hard one day and washed some dirt into the trench before I got all the connections made. So tomorrow I plan to blow air back through it to see what happens.
 
Must be water non-cooperation day - checked one solar system today to find a 4 inch split in the side of the new 500 gallon plastic trough I bought this spring. Looks like a cows foot did it - just don't know what her foot was doing in there. Luckily it is reasonably near the top of the trough so I can adjust the float and keep it from spilling for now.
Then I checked one group of cows on the pasture pipeline to find their trough had been running over since yesterday - Hudson valve acting up as they do on occasion.
Hopefully that's it for problems as we plan to head off tomorrow for an overnight trip (read my annual vacation)
 
PureCountry said:
I'm getting slightly past the point of frustration with our water system. We built a reservoir on one pasture this summer, it's spring fed. Took our solar pump down there and set it up, it wouldn't pump high enough for the required lift, which is right around 13-14'. It's a Kelln Solar 12V/16amp unit, and instead of the 2 stock 6V batteries, I've been using 1 Deep Cycle/RV-Marine 12V the last few years without troubles.

Since it didn't want to pump the water high enough in this application, I hooked up a 2nd 12V battery in tandem - positive to positive, neg to neg. As soon as I turned the pump on, the water came gushing in the tank. After slight hoorays and celebrations, we went to get the cows, sure that we had nothing to worry about. We got the cows there on Friday after much hassle and running around - another story - they drank the tank down, and when the pump kicked in, it wouldn't bring the water high enough. Anybody have any thoughts on why it would do it once and not the 2nd time?

We brought the batteries home and put on trickle charge overnight, took them into the parts place in town and he tested them. One was putting out 12V the other 12.5V. The guy I bought the solar pump from says a 12V battery should be putting out 13.5 to 14 V at full charge. Any thoughts on that? I'd never heard of it.
Click to expand...

I agree that your voltage is too low but if the pump is supposed to be adequate for your set up it should pump anyway just slower than with fully charged batteries. I've got 3 solar systems, none of them use batteries, they just pump during daylight hours. When I put in the first one they told me to avoid batteries and use a larger tank to store water instead. Adding batteries doubled the required number of solar panels.
This is the last one I put in. Its been watering 150-180 pairs with no problems.
P9140055.jpg

P9140053.jpg
 
gcreekrch said:
You can move here PC, the creeks are still running. :wink:
Click to expand...

Don't tempt me Dave. After all the neighours that have been selling to the south of us, now we got a letter in the mail from the county yesterday. They're serving notice of a proposed development on the north end of our place, which ends up about 150yds from the entrance into Hardisty. There's a tiny little triangle shaped piece of property between a small farm and our pasture that the hiway cuts off. Some guy has bought it, and wants to build a large RV Park there. It can't be more than 1/2 an acre, but whoever camps there will have free access into a few hundred acres of our pastures. The guy doing it doesn't want to put up chain link fence of any kind, so we're going to have words over this I'm sure. I'm getting a little fed up with development around here. Usually it's oil and gas, now there's alot more of this kind of crap. :mad:
 
PC - i would guess that the extra power (amp / hours) required to pump the added lift is using more power than the solar panels can charge.
You can add a linear current booster that might help, or just add panels or a windcharger. We always run into issues when the days get shorter.

Amen to the development thing. It is a tad out of control province wide.
 
PureCountry said:
gcreekrch said:
You can move here PC, the creeks are still running. :wink:
Click to expand...

Don't tempt me Dave. After all the neighours that have been selling to the south of us, now we got a letter in the mail from the county yesterday. They're serving notice of a proposed development on the north end of our place, which ends up about 150yds from the entrance into Hardisty. There's a tiny little triangle shaped piece of property between a small farm and our pasture that the hiway cuts off. Some guy has bought it, and wants to build a large RV Park there. It can't be more than 1/2 an acre, but whoever camps there will have free access into a few hundred acres of our pastures. The guy doing it doesn't want to put up chain link fence of any kind, so we're going to have words over this I'm sure. I'm getting a little fed up with development around here. Usually it's oil and gas, now there's alot more of this kind of crap. :mad:
Click to expand...
Must be some sort of opportunity in there for you PC. Minigolf, water slide, upick saskatoons. How much room is left on your plate. :wink:
 
Older batteries, previous to 1995- I think produced about 13-14 volts.

The newer batteries should produce 12.6 and no less.
 
OOPS. I was thinking BC started this thread and I was bringing it
back to the top since we haven't heard from BC for way too long.
I sent him a PM that he has never picked up. I sincerely hope he is
okay; but it is a worry with the line of work he is in.

Prayers for you, BC.
 
We have a solar thats been in 10 years pumps 5 gpm 180 ft down . Use it year round have never had trouble . Had a good well man put it in and paid about half again as much as a budy.he has nothing but trouble. Some one that understands them might be less $ then 10 phone call and 5 trips good luck.
 

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