Water, surface, pump powered by Sola.

[kickstart]

Hi All.

         The project, we have a large pond on our property, we use it mainly for watering the garden, and we rear some fish, vie an electric pump this time of year with usage and evaporation the level drops quickly.

At the back of land is a small river distance about 220 meters, the idea is to use a sola pump to pump the water from the river to our pond.

By using a trailer mounted unit, similar to the photo, but a lot smaller, say going out in the morning and coming home in the evening.

I aim to use a 2HP pump, with a 2-inch outlet, looking at Google it will need 1600 Wats to power the pump, our local Thai Wat Sado has all the stuff they have 400-Watt panels, inverters, and pumps.

The questions are, using a DC pump, you should not need an inverter??  Wat Sado has one a 2HP DC pump 13 000 baht, as far as I can see you should not need a battery, but the guy in Wat Sado said you do, do you?

As I said our pump we use in the garden, I brought 10years ago ,it  is a Mr. Eco ,Italian made pump ,one of the best you can get ,we had it 18 months brought  it out at the new year ,would not start ,took it to our local electric motor guy ,who  had to rewind the motor, I said it is an Italian pump, he said no, a Chines copy ,it had aluminum windings ,not copper ,he rewound it with copper ,now no problems.

The 2HP DC pump I was looking at was made in China, thinking will it last?13k for a 2HP DC pump, so I thought buy a good quality AC pump and use an inverter?

Google said you need 1600 Watt to power the pump, but I have read on start up an electric motor needs more power, just to turn the motor over, once it is going then it will use its 1600 Watt's, if so. would you need say an extra panel, for start-up.

Thanks. 

[Bandersnatch]

Might be a communication problem. You don’t need an inverter (which converts DC to AC or AC to DC) You do need a controller which is normally included.

 

You only need batteries if you want to use the pump after dark.

 

It is usual to oversize PV panel wattage as you won’t get the maximum wattage most of the day. I have 4 solar pumps, they produce a lower flow rate when the sun comes up.

 

I wouldn’t recommend buying PV panels from Thaiwasadu as they are not competitively priced. They are ฿10 per Watt last time I checked, while a specialist solar shop should give you a better price.

This is a video I made about a solar pond pump I setup for a local school a few years ago

 

 

[jvs]

We have four 450 watt panels and a 2 inch pump.

We can pump something like 20 cubic meters of water per hour.

The pump we had before this one was a 1 and a halve inch and it is still running well but in another part of the land.

The first pump we bought we were told we needed a converter and a battery.

That was total bs,the converter just tried to maintain a certain voltage but for DC that is not needed.

When we did use that we also needed a battery and i just installed an old motorbike battery,the battery was needed to complete the circuit.

Thaiwatsadu is not cheap with panels,there are better places to buy your equipment and other places actually do have knowledge.

We paid for the pump and four panels a total of 23500 baht.

We live in an oasis here,all is green around us.

[Fruit Trader]

2hp brushless DC motor/pump with mppt controller, no battery required electronic controller handles the start load.

There are many specs for these pumps to suit various panel arrangements and voltages.

Example spec :-

Output 190V 1500W.

Solar panels open circuit voltage <430V power >1900W.

Approx cost excluding panels 12-14k Baht.
 

[kickstart]

Thanks for all of the replies, lots of info they.

I agree, Wat Sado not cheap, that was basically my starting point. 

A 2hp brushless DC motor/pump, a good idea, where to buy one, preferably one that does not have made in China stamped on it.