Leds For Multi Switched Water Pump

[bmore99]

I live in Khon Kaen city, most of the time the water pressure is high enough.

Just need the water pump to be working for the showers and the washing machine.

No point in having the pump turning on/off automatically every minute to keep pressure on the system 24/7.

I have installed two 3-way-switches and one 4-way-switch in between them (1 in each bathroom and 1 in the kitchen)

This way it is easy to switch the pump on and off as needed.

Only problem is, the switches do not show if the pump is on or off.

I want to put a LED in each switch, that will turn on when the wire to the pump is connected (hot).

Therefore I have an extra wire going through all the switches to connect the LEDs to and to connect to the start (Live) and end (switched) of the electric cable to the pump.

(The attached drawing might explain it better)

Does anybody know what type of resistance and diode I need to put in and where to put them?

Thanks

Ben

[howto]

Perhaps this will help

http://www.turbokeu.com/myprojects/acled.htm

Other options include

- using a neon bulb instead of LED

- tag in a outlet then use a cheap "nite-lite" from the market.

Hope it helps.

Cheers

[Crossy]

The circuit running LEDs off the mains will work, just put one LED in each switch and have them all in series with a single 1k8 resistor and 330n cap. Put a 1N4148 in reverse parallel across each LED and you won't have to worry about polarity of each.

With the circuit as in the OP the LED will be on when the pump supply is off (it's across the switch chain) by modifying it as below it will work as the OP intends

EDIT A thought, if wired as in the OP (and LED on when switch off is acceptable) you may need to put another 330n cap across the pump itself to provide a current path when the pump pressure switch is off.

[bmore99]

Great replies, many thanks

rgds

Ben