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Titan Solar Battery VS 1/2 hp 120v Well Pump

Fr33dom4All

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Nov 18, 2019
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I am trying to find if the Titan Solar Battery can run an 1/2 hp 120v Well Pump. Also how would I measure the draw on the Titan when I hooked it up to the well pump to see how much draw the pump is pulling?
 
I run a 1/2 hp sump with a 300 Ah battery and a 1000 watt GoPower SW inverter. IIRC it is 825 watts running, 1450 watts start surge. My battery ran the pump just over 5 hours continuous during a test.
 
I tried to run the pump off the normal 120 out and received 5 beeps which tech support told me was a notice that the draw was too much for the Titan. So I bought a 30 amp to standard house plug (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CTFTVX3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and tried again and it still give me beeps and shuts off. But from what you are saying the Titan with a 3k inverter should be able to handle this pump. So I am at a loss as to why. I am buying a wattage meter and will try again to see what the draw is.
 
Well I got a wattage meter and I found that when I hooked it up and started up the pump the titan hit 2163 watts and then did the 5 beeps and shut off. So this unit I have even though they say has a 3k inverter doesn't appear to actually take any where close to 3k draw. I am going to call the Titan support desk and find out what they have to say on Monday.
 
Here is what Titan Support says. Does it make sense?

"Water pumps usually are too much to handle for a 3000W inverter. They may also have a surge that is higher than 6000W which the Titan would be unable to handle, even though it is a 120v water pump. We always test our Titan units before shipping them out and we can confirm it ran at 3000W continuous. To make sure it is still running correctly, you should run a test on a resistive load such as a heater or heat guns. See if you can run up to 3000W continuous and then you will know the Titan is working properly and the water pump is too high of a load.


It can be confusing with water pumps since it is an inductive load, it may be showing 2165 watts on the display screen but with this type of load there may be over 3000W being pulled from the Titan. Also, have the meter show amps instead of watts."
 
What is the well pump? I have a 3600 watt inverter and even with inverter loaded with over 1500 watts it still has no issues with a 1/2HP 120V Grundfos well pump. I believe those do have a "soft start" though to prevent sudden surges when they turn on.
 
The meter I have seems to overload at around 2300 watts. Anyone have know of a meter that goes to 3k or above?

And my pump is a 1/2 hp 5 gpm 110 volt Franklin pump
 
The meter may not be fast enough to capture the peak surge.
Does Titan spec show what the surge duration is for peak power? I believe uses High Frequency type Inverter, so the surge is rated in milliSeconds instead of Seconds like Low Frequency (Massive power transformer) type inverter.
Did you ask pump manufacturer to find out what the surge rating is?
 
I just asked Franklin Pumps what is the draw of their 1/2 hp 5 gpm 110 volt Franklin pump and their answer was 66 amps for 300 to 400 milliseconds. Titan support says anything over 25 amps is too much. So it appears I should have asked to have that 1/2HP 120V Grundfos well pump installed instead.
 
What is the well pump? I have a 3600 watt inverter and even with inverter loaded with over 1500 watts it still has no issues with a 1/2HP 120V Grundfos well pump. I believe those do have a "soft start" though to prevent sudden surges when they turn on.
Where did you buy your pump? Is your type the one below?
 
Last edited:
What Titan Tech Support said"

"Yes 66 amps is too high for a 3,000 watt inverter, even though it is only for 300 to 400 milliseconds. The inverter probably never gets the pump going, because it can't handle the startup load. If the continuous load is only 1500 watts, it would probably run it if it could get it started.

The soft start may reduce the initial load, and get the pump going, however a 3600 watt inverter is larger than a 3,000 watt inverter. So I am not sure if that pump would work with the Titan either.

We really don't recommend well pumps with the Titan, since we have never tested one that worked. You also have to be careful with AC units. The Titan works with most small ones, but larger ones it will not work with. But large inductive loads like well pumps, and AC units are hard for inverters to run. This is one of the reasons we are working on our 2.0, which will allow you to connect two units together to produce 6,000 watts (120 or 240V). We have tested this on well pumps, and it has worked great."
 
It is always good to ask the appliance manufacturers and the inverter makers what the surge capability of the devices are before making the decision as what to buy.
 
Another Titan Support Comment:

"We are still developing the 2.0. We expected it to be released by now, but ran into a few issues that needed to be resolved first. We estimate the first of next year, but that will depend on how things go.

Also we were not able to make the original Titan compatible with the 2.0. The original Titan does not have the capability of connecting two or more together, we also bumped the battery voltage up to 48V to make the 2.0 powerful enough to run an entire house (when enough are connected together)."
 
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