Issue With Solar Powered Well, Please Advise

[GBM]

Evening gentlemen, here's to hoping one of y'all have some advice on how to solve this bugger.

Setup:
Solar panel feeds power through control module and inverter to pump, which draws water to holding tank. Holding tank is above ground and is not pressurized. Pipe from the pump comes straight up through the ground and takes (2) 90deg joints to spit water out downward into tank.

There is no "battery" that the panel charges, so the pump does not run at night. The tank's discharge line has a higher rate of flow than the pump pushes in. So it starts each day empty and finishes each day empty, and during the day the net differences between inflow & outflow are not significant enough to ever let the tank fill up to the top.

Scenario
Until recently, I had the tank's discharge line (gravity fed, no inline pump) feeding to a pond that we recently built on the property. We were attempting to fill up the pond via that solar well when we were fortunate enough to have a solid rain come through and fill it up for us.

So now I don't have a need to discharge everything the well can bring up so I install a float on the end of the pipe that spits the water down into the tank. I wanted the float to shut off the water when the tank got full, easy right?

Issue
Wrong. In complete rookie fashion, I didn't recognize that even though the float stops the water from discharging into the tank it does not shut the pump off. So the pump keeps trying to push water up and I'm worried the back pressure is going to split some of the old pipe underground or burn my pump up.





I've read that there are floats that you can hook into the control module's circuit that will kill the power to the pump when the float valve is triggered.

If anyone has any knowledge to bestow I would gladly take it.

God Bless

[ltbre8]

Been doing solar setups with the USDA-NRCS for a few years, that's usually how ours are setup with the float on the storage tank. Most folks deal with a company in Tomball, just west of Houston. I can get you their name tomorrow, I have it at the office.

[Draco]

You need to set it up where after the tank is full, the water being pumped will go back down into the well. That is the way the only two I have seen were set up.

[buxNdux]

Google reverses action pressure switch for a solar pump.. That should help you out

[bowhuntntxn]

Seems simple enough to me. Get a NORMALLY CLOSED switch and connect the output of the solar panel to one side, and the other side goes to the input of the pump. Fashion a bracket to the float so that when the tank is full, the float activates the switch, and opens the circuit from the panel to the pump. That will remove the power input from the pump, and turn it off.

I have no idea if the pump will lose its prime when it shuts off, but if it hasn't been running at night, then I doubt it would now.

1 switch, some solder less terminals, heat shrink tubing or good electrical tape, and a little time and you should be good to go. Good luck, and hope this helped.

[Coyote Canyon]

I have mine hooked up with a float on a water trough. I used a set of contacts/pressure switch which works just like you turn your lights on and off.

[GBM]

I have mine hooked up with a float on a water trough. I used a set of contacts/pressure switch which works just like you turn your lights on and off.

I like the ingenuity!

[GBM]

Thanks for y'all's replies. I took a better look at the control module and - wouldn't you know it - my assumption was that it was a base model with no features was wrong. It is pretty basic but it has signal lights for: (1) tank is full, (2) battery is low. So somehow, it is set up to work with a float switch already and may have a battery connection port (I don't think it has a built in battery).

The model is Lorentz PS2000. Any of you guys work with one of these? And what type of "Normally Open" float switch would you recommend?