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SQF 6-3 pump

Wellbuilt

Solar Enthusiast
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Sep 14, 2020
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I’m getting read to drop my pump in to the center of the earth .
my well is 735’ deep and I’m placeing the pump @ 700 Feet +-
I could run 6 295 watt panels in series and get plenty of water .
The thing is I only need 2/300 gallons a day .
It seams like a wast of solar panels @ 6 gallons a minute I could pump enough water for the day in a hour .
The pump uses 14/ 1500 watts or so.
I’m now thinking about adding a second out back fm80 charge controllers and 12 more 295 watt solar panels to my power system .
Then just pumping water to my storage tank for 12 minutes an hour for 3 hours and run the pump off a timer .
I have a low yield well , the water is 300 to 500 feet down depending on the time of year .
It seams like a wast to just have the panels sitting idol for most of the day
Dose any one have any thoughts thanks in advance for your thoughts
 
First thought, select a pump/motor combination that will pump only 2 GPM into your holding tank.
500 feet to static water level is challenging. There are not many pumps to select from for that depth at low flow rates.
In your situation, you want the smallest motor that will do the job, but it will require 3/4 HP just for the height of that water column.
Please post a link to the pump/motor combination that you have, or are considering.
 
Hi John I have a grundfos SQF 6-3 solar pump .
This pump will pump to 820’ 6 gallons a minute .
They make a pump that would pump to 650 foot @ 3 gallons per Minute .
I did not feel good about dropping the pump down to it’s max depth so I own the
SQF 6-3 .
At first I thought i could just adjust the amount of solar in the summer to pump slowly and that was my plan .
Then thinking about it , it dosent seam like a good idea to have 5/6 290 watt solar panels just sitting around to just pump water For a hour or 2 a day .
My next thought was to add the panels to my system and supply power With the inverter .
My inverter is a outback 36 48 volt inverter I have 4500 watts of solar on a out back fm 80 and have 9 more
295 watt panels 2700 watts ,that I will add to my system .
Running off the inverter i should get 6 gallons a minute at 1500 watts or so .
I think ’running the pump on a timer could get me 60 gallons in 10 minutes and 180 gallons in half
an hour .
 
Hi John I have a grundfos SQF 6-3 solar pump .
This pump will pump to 820’ 6 gallons a minute .
They make a pump that would pump to 650 foot @ 3 gallons per Minute .
I did not feel good about dropping the pump down to it’s max depth so I own the
SQF 6-3 .
At first I thought i could just adjust the amount of solar in the summer to pump slowly and that was my plan .
Then thinking about it , it dosent seam like a good idea to have 5/6 290 watt solar panels just sitting around to just pump water For a hour or 2 a day .
My next thought was to add the panels to my system and supply power With the inverter .
My inverter is a outback 36 48 volt inverter I have 4500 watts of solar on a out back fm 80 and have 9 more
Sorry, I should have picked up what pump you are using from the title.
Typical Grundfos equipment .... well engineered, high quality, and VERY costly.

Since you already own the pump, you just have the same “problem” that many of us have ... what useful work can you do with the excess solar energy during long summer days? There are lots of threads discussing this, but most require spending more money to put the available energy to work. There don’t seem to be many easy solutions. Run a single room AC in summer? Run the clothes washer? Power the hot water heater? Space heat in the colder months?

BTW, I run the same Outback FM80’s, and a pair of VFX3524 inverters. They aren’t the fanciest on the block now, but they have been totally reliable.
 
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I’m not really worried about using the extra power I’m trying to decide weather to run the pump off solar panels directly
or just put the power into the house system and run off the inverter?
I’m only using 10% of my battery over night and I’m in absorb by 930 now so at 100 I’m done charging .
I’m thinking of running the pump for 10 min at 1100 10 min at 100 and 10 min 300 pm .
Winter time is rough here , I want to mount 9 panels on the ground so I can clean the snow and ice off and get some power from the sky .
I have more water 8 months out of the year so I can pump water with the genaratar @ 6 gallons a min for a longer time with out drawing the well down to much .
 
O ya, I had to sell a kidney to get up the money for the pump .
I started looking at the pumps 5 years ago when I drilled the well .
Then the pumps where 1800 $ now 2300 the 700’ of sch120 drop Pipe was all so big money .
And the 700’ of pump cable? o wow .
Now I’m trying to figure out how to get the pump down the well 700’ with out breaking the bank . ?
 
700 feet of SCH 120, plus the pump, plus wire will weigh more than 500 pounds. Not a job for the wife and kids.

Unless wiring runs are costly/complicated, it sure sounds like connecting the panels as inverter inputs makes the most sense. You could run the pump on 115 VAC to lessen the peak load, and slow the rate of pumping whenever it was advantageous to do that. And connect the pump to 230 VAC when you need higher flow rate. If you have 230 with neutral going to the pump controller, you wouldn’t even need to run any extra wire.

It seems like the best way to get good use out of the extra panels.
 
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Thanks for the reply John , I’ve been trying to figure this out for a few years now .
my buddy drilled the well for me but he dosent do pumps .
Most guys want to just drop a 3hp pump down and run it on a big generator .
The rig is about 720lbs my kids are big .
ive been looking for a guy to put the pump in but Im in the middle of no where and there are only a few guys to call
No one is interested in doing solar pumps .
I bought the material in hopes that I can get one of them to just set the pump for me .
ill see how it gos .
By fall if the pump is not in I’ll have to give it a try .
 
Yeah, in my experience, the pump guys don’t like installing equipment that they didn’t sell you at 100% markup. And sometimes hard to get them to come even then.

As I noted in another post, Cindy and I have been pulling our submersible pumps for many years whenever they need servicing. (We have three wells.)

To accomplish this I built an A-frame gantry that bolts to the front end loader on my tractor. This places a pulley about 22 feet up in the air that I position right over the well casing. I attach another palley to the well casing at ground level. We run a length of 5/16“ steel cable from the bumper hitch of the pickup, through the pulley attached to the well casing, up through the pulley on top of the gantry, and down to a cable eye attached to a pipe nipple that screws onto the top length of down-hole pipe. Another stabilizing cable is fixed from the top of the gantry to the back of the tractor. Cindy drives the pickup forward about 22 feet, and up comes the first length of pipe. I secure the top of the second length of pipe, unscrew the length now extending 20 feet in the air, and Cindy backs up the truck while I layout the now-free length of pipe, and carefully layout the pump wire. Rinse and repeat until the pump is above the casing. Installation is just the reverse process.

We‘ve used it at least a dozen times, and it has saved us a bunch of money.

This gets more complicated if you don’t have a front end loader that can get the bottom of the gantry 6 or 8 feet off the ground, but maybe this can give you some ideas. Is the well inside a pump house that might work to help brace a gantry? Or can you borrow/rent a box truck that you might used to brace a gantry? Or 25-feet of surplus radio antenna tower that you can rig/remove above the well head (with a concrete base and guy wires)?

Be careful. Everyone wears a hard hat. But it is nice to be self-sufficient, and you would always be able to service it yourself.
 
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Wow servicing your pumps a dozen time , seams like a lot .
I’ve only had one problem with my pump at home in 40 years .
The wires rubbed on the rock bore hole sides and shorted the pump .
im planing on adding the rubber Twork preventer above the pump .
A check valve 20’ from the pump then every 200 feet
I am thinking about tapping the wire to the pipe every 10 feet .
I’m seeing round plastic wire stand offs that keep The wire pipe in the center of the hole I’m thinking about using them every 40’ or maybe 20’ I don’t know .
are you using any thing like that ?
I’m hoping that I won’t have to pull the pump in my life time .
How long do the pumps last ?
I’m 60 now so I’m hoping for 25 years out of this pump .

I do have 24’ aluminum poles and I was thinking about setting up 3 or 4 of them over the well head.
Then pull or lower the pump with a truck , or a winch the way you describe .
I have all kinds of loaders , excavators , trucks .
I could weld or bolt some thing to my skid steer bucket that’s a good idea .
I was thinking about renting a pump lift but don’t really like the idea of just the rubber tracks holding the pipe while you work on it .
I have 35’ of 4” pvc run under the garage slab and pops up in the utility room , I just need to dig from the well head to the house 15’ and snake the wire and 1” water line the hook up a pit less adaptor thru the well casting .
At this point I would be willing to pay a couple k to have a guy come buy with a truck with a boom and drop it in , it’s a lot of screwing and taping but it could be done in 8 hours I think 13 min a pipe ?
I would hate to louse the pump down the hole .
 
Several of the dozen times were pulling pumps for friends and relatives. But I have had a lot of trouble that I attribute significantly to the temperature of our water, which runs 125 degrees at the pump. That heat is bad for everything.

And I pulled pumps again, the last times, about eight years ago when I converted the pumps to three-phase motors, and variable frequency drives. Since then, no problems. I think this is because of a cooler running motor, and elimination of the severe starting torque that jerks the pipe and wire every time a 1-1/2 HP motor is dropped across the line. Since making that conversion, we haven’t pulled a pump in eight years, I’m glad to say.

Our task isn’t nearly as hard as yours, with our pumps all sitting about 180 to 200 feet down.

i have never used the plastic pipe centering stand-offs. My motor wires have always just been taped to the pipe about every 10 feet. i also haven’t used the torque absorber, but sounds like it might be a good idea with the pump hanging on a 600-foot noodle.

Yes, dropping a pump down a well can be big trouble. A pump guy did that when pulling one for us many years ago. It took him whole next day to fish it back out, and I thought he got really lucky to snag the pipe.

If you can get a pump guy out to do it for you for any kind of a reasonable price, that’s the best the way to go
 
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O wow 180, is a easy one , the boys can yank them out by hand .
Even at 3/ 400 feet it’s not to bad , 700’ of pipe down the well makes my but pucker a little bit .
I hope I find a guy to do it .
 
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