Lapierre Vertical Electric Releaser Float String

[Amber Gold]

Thanks Shaun. That's what makes me nervous is changing things mid stream. I'll ride it out this week, and make the swap next weekend, so I have the weekend to keep an eye on it and get comfortable.

I have a couple holes drilled in my pump discharge pipe, so the pump doesn't get air bound. Sap sprays inside the Releaser. Is that going to give the probe a false reading?

[Shaun]

I would say yes if the sap sprayed on the sensor. My check valve is outside of the releaser with a 1/4" valve/bleed return line to deal with the air bound issue. This dumps back into the manifold section so it does not spray on the sensor. Maybe you can deflect the sap? It seems like a small bleed is enough.

[Amber Gold]

Last season, I got the HC6000 pump control, but didn’t install it. Installed it this season, but the season was underway by the time I got to it. I plugged it in to dry test it…make sure the lights were coming on when they were supposed to, and the relay was tripping when it was supposed to…all good for like a week or more. The other day I went to make the switch over, and it didn’t work anymore…lights weren’t right.

So, my releaser setup for background. I have a Lapierre vertical electric releaser with a Sta-Rite pump inside. The discharge pumping is PVC and it had a brass swing check valve on the piping inside of the releaser. The swing check was leaking air, so that morning, I swapped it out with a straight piece of pipe and a PVC spring check mounted externally. That’s all I changed to the releaser.

So, what’s happening now, is when the bottom sensor is wet, I get a solid red…not sensing water. When the top sensor gets wet, and liquid level gets above the top sensor, it activates the relay, but as soon as the liquid level is below the top sensor, it deactivates the relay…short cycling. My situation seems like NH Maplemker’s from the first page.

My best guess, after reading through this thread, is it’s no longer getting a ground…for some reason. The releaser is all PVC, the piping is all PVC, the pump is grounded through the electrical wiring (I think), so wouldn’t the “system” be grounded while the pump is in liquid? How did just swapping out the brass check affect the ground? How do I ground the pump switch, so it works correctly?

[Shaun]

I'm sure you have checked, does it beep 3 times after you unplug and plug back in?
I have the same set up, the pump is grounded and a gould deep well. System has been rock solid a few seasons now.

My pump is 120v. A 240v pump can operate without a ground. You may want to verify it is grounded well too.

[Amber Gold]

I'm pretty sure it beeps, but will double check.

I'll double check the ground wire going through the Lapierre float switch.

My pump is 240V, and the pump works fine...actually, I didn't know they could work without a ground.

Yeah, I was pretty excited to make the switch because I had been dry testing it for a week, and it'd been working fine the entire time. For whatever reason, taking the brass check out disrupted something.

Thanks Shaun.

[Simeon]

I had the same issue last year with my external pump wired 220. I had to run a separate ground wire from the pump housing in order to make the sensors work. The sap needs to be grounded, I believe, and i think you've insulated it in your system. You need to get a ground to that sap. Good luck!

[Amber Gold]

But isn't the pump shell itself grounded, so if the pump is in sap, then isn't the system grounded? If not, how do I ground it? I don't want to bring a separate ground wire into the releaser, and the pump is wired externally.

Electrical stuff is like voodoo sometimes, so it doesn't always make sense to me.

[Simeon]

I agree that it's like voodoo. This happened to me twice actually. The grounded pump didnt cut it and an additional ground solved the problem. Both releasers have external pumps. One I grounded by attaching a copper wire to a copper fitting on the releaser and the other end to a screw in the concrete floor. The other an alligator clip to the pump body to a rod in the ground.

[Amber Gold]

You gave me an idea.

I don't want to drill new holes through the releaser wall. The float system has a tube that is bolted through the releaser wall. Can I wrap a ground wire around the bolt inside releaser, and then on the outside of the releaser wrap another ground wire around the bolt and connect it to the power supply ground for the pump? The bolt is stainless, so will it still work?

Thanks!

[GeneralStark]

I would think for the amount of money you spent on this equipment LaPierre would be there in a flash and have this all sorted out...