Pump only staying on couple of secs at a time round 2

[wlf89]

its doing it again. has been working fine since i replaced the wire untill yesterday. first time it messed up i restarted the pressure switch and it pumped but it was slower than normal, and since then it has the exact same symptoms as last time. pump will only cut on for a sec and will not turn back on untill around 30secs then will bump on for another sec.

pulled the pump today and i dont see nothing wrong with the wires nowhere this time.

wondering if maybe the pump could be messed up this time, since the last time i seen it work it was building pressure slower.

is there an easy way to test the pump? other than just sticking it in some water and powering it on.

here is link to the old post
https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/pump-only-staying-on-couple-of-secs-at-a-time.76960/

 

[Valveman]

Check for a short with an ohm meter. Sounds like the motor is toast and tripping the internal overload. They take about 30 seconds to reset.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[wlf89]

Meter is showing no continuity between ground and hot wires. Resistance between hot wires is 2.8. the Franklin chart shows a range between 2.2 and 2.7. this is measured at the pump after pulling. Could that .1 make that much if a difference?

 

[Reach4]

Meter is showing no continuity between ground and hot wires. Resistance between hot wires is 2.8. the Franklin chart shows a range between 2.2 and 2.7. this is measured at the pump after pulling. Could that .1 make that much if a difference?

No. Chances are you will see 0.1 or so touching your probes together due to contact resistance and probe wire resistance. In theory that would measure 0.0. It takes a special kind of ohmmeter to eliminate that in a measurement.

When your pump was cycling, what was the pressure switch doing? Sitting there quietly, or were the contacts acting? If the problem was just the pump, you would expect the pressure switch to not have moved the contacts and there would have been no click.

 

[wlf89]

The pump won't cycle. the contacts stay down on pressure switch, but the pump stops. This happened all at once. Pump worked great for the 6 weeks or so since we changed the wire. Then started doing this. I can start the pump, and it will pump a couple of seconds, then slow down. then eventually stop alltogether. If it's been sitting for quite a while, it might pump enough to reach the 50 psi cutoff pressure (very slowly), and then the switch shuts off normally. But it pumps very slowly, not like it has for the past 6 weeks. But it will only do that occasionally. It usually will just pump enough to raise the pressure a couple of psi, then slow down, and then stop pumping, while the contacts on pressure switch are still touching. Bypassed the pressure switch for a few seconds, and did the same thing.

 

[wlf89]

We were just checking the wiring once again, and the splices. Cut the splices off at the pump. Noticed the wires going into the pump are corroded. Cut them back a foot or so, and still corroded pretty bad

 

[Reach4]

Two wire pump. On last test would be to watch the voltage on the wires that go to your two wire pump. That voltage should stay up during this problem.

Presuming that, your 2-wire submersible pump has failed.

 

[wlf89]

Two wire pump. On last test would be to watch the voltage on the wires that go to your two wire pump. That voltage should stay up during this problem.

Presuming that, your 2-wire submersible pump has failed.

Yes 2 wire pump. so if the voltage stays up, then that means the pump has failed? Wish I'd checked that before I pulled it

 

[Reach4]

Yes 2 wire pump. so if the voltage stays up, then that means the pump has failed? Wish I'd checked that before I pulled it

I would not go that far. Let's say that if the voltage does not stay up, the problem is probably not the pump. Most likely the voltage stays up, but it's easy enough to check for some oddball condition.

 

[wlf89]

dropped a used pump that i had in there yesterday and so far its working, so guess maybe it was just something wrong with pump.