Well pump or Pump Saver?

[HollyAR75]

Our 210' well has a 1 hp submersible Grundfos pump that is 26 years old. This is connected to a Littelfuse pumpsaver and fills into a cistern. Well general makes 1/4 to 1/3 gallon per minute. Low Yielding but sustainable for us.

On Thursday evening, cistern was empty. We called our pump company out and they reset the pump saver and it dumps the contents of the well into the cistern. Well storage is only about 80 gallons and it was full. They determined the well pump seemed to pump although they didn't pull it. He showed us how to reset the pump saver. It has always been set to 160 minute cycles and for the next cycle time, it pumped the proper amount of water expected. Then nothing.

On Saturday, we reset the pump saver and it ran a couple of cycles emptying good amount of water into cistern, then nothing. Now we re-calibrated the pump saver and it won't come out of run mode (solid green light indicating it's pumping water). We feel a vibration on well head but it will eventually shut off and pump saver keeps showing green light.

Before we pay a ton of money for the well company to come back, was wondering if this could be solved easier. It does seem like it's the pump saver, not communicating properly to the well pump, or is it the well pump is not pumping correctly, working sometimes and sometimes not. Any help is appreciated.

 

[Reach4]

On the pump saver, measure the voltage between terminals L1 OUT and L2 OUT.

If there is 240 volts and the pump is not pumping, the problem would not seem to be the Pump Saver.

 

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[HollyAR75]

On the pump saver, measure the voltage between terminals L1 OUT and L2 OUT.

If there is 240 volts and the pump is not pumping, the problem would not seem to be the Pump Saver.

The voltage is correct, but the pump saver is still not behaving like it should. The light turns green when it's running and flashes green when well is dry. It stuck on green now, was stuck on flashing before. But could it be picking up that there is water in the well but the pump isn't getting it to the surface.

 

[Reach4]

The voltage is correct, but the pump saver is still not behaving like it should. The light turns green when it's running and flashes green when well is dry. It stuck on green now, was stuck on flashing before. But could it be picking up that there is water in the well but the pump isn't getting it to the surface.

So next, while you have 240 volts at terminals L1 OUT and L2 OUT and you have the green light, check the voltage between L1 and L2 on the pump controller. If that is not 240 V, then the problem would be before the pump controller (float switch, wiring). If there is 240, then pump, controller, wiring would be the suspects.

I guess you could measure the current flowing in L1 or L2 with a clamp-around ammeter. I was presuming that would be close to zero if the pump is not running, but it does seem worth checking.

 

[Bannerman]

We feel a vibration on well head but it will eventually shut off and pump saver keeps showing green light.

The vibration, is most likely to be the pump continuing to run while the well has too little water to pump. Running a pump without sufficient water flow, will usually result in the pump overheating, thereby causing an internal thermal protection switch to shut off power until the pump has sufficient time to cool.

If the Pump Saver cannot continue to be calibrated to appropriately recognize the reduced current consumed by the pump when it begins to pump air, then it's likely the Pump Saver is defective. Consider a Cycle Stop Valves 'Cycle Sensor' as an alternative replacement to the Pump Saver.

CSV Cycle Sensor