X3 Hybrid Pump on the way!!!

[taekwondodo]

Pulling out my 10 year old 2hp Whisperflo, and putting this bad-boy in.

My pad is a mess - hope to clean it up quite the bit in the process...

Woot Woot!

 

[Guest]

You will love it

 

[taekwondodo]

I want to significantly re-design my pad - Currently have 2, 2HPs "switched in" to the jacuuzi when the Jacuuzi's on, and want to get rid of the booster pump for the Polaris (may change out the 380s parts to turn it into a 360, or better-yet, go with "the pool cleaner"). Right now, my heater's rated for 80GPM, and I'm pushing about 120 GPM through it - and it takes forever to heat up the Jacuzzi in the winter (not sure if I should expect an improvement in this if I tone it down to ~80 GPM).

More importantly, want to be able to run my solar all-day without spending a fortune. According to the info I have, I'm running about 110-120gpm at 2500 watts through 8 solar panels, and have to limit the time because the electricity is just so dang expensive.

With 8 panels, the FAFCO docs say I can get 80-90% efficiencies at 4-5GPM per panel, so I shouldn't lose much by running at 40gpm.... and I'll be able to run it much longer for cheaper so that should more than make up for any minor increase in efficiencies I was getting at the higher flow rate.

I'm also thinking about a flow meter in the system - that was the one thing I really liked about the Intilliflo VF was the integrated flow monitoring. I guess I could use the TDH "Pressure-side/suction-side" method... but think a flow meter would be easier.

 

[Davegvg]

I saw this pump, very cool.Their whole product line is cool.

I think youll find having a variable speed modern pump is a realy cool toy.

I also think youll find having a wattage number with a flow meter is almost as cool as a fully integrated flow meter without any of the attendant programming and setup hassels of the VF into a solar setup.

I've spent countless hours optimizing and "tuning" various features.

Enjoy

Dave

 

[taekwondodo]

Most of the flow meters I can find are for 2" pipe - I'm looking at coming out of the pump at 3" - will this matter?

 

[JasonLion]

The flow meter must match the size and orientation of the pipe it is installed on. Blue & White makes flow meters for all sizes of pipe. Here is one for 3" pipe and there are a couple of variants for other orientations.

Keep in mind that the flow meter also requires a substantial length of straight pipe both before and after the meter.

 

[taekwondodo]

Wow - for three inch pipe, they want 30" (10x,or 20" if 2" pipe) before the meter, and 12" (4x, or 8" if I stick with 2" pipe) after. That's 4' (or a little less than 3', if I stick with 2") I need, just to find the flow.

I don't think I have that kind of room... and even so, it would be a strange-looking configuration with that much pipe - any other alternatives?

 

[Bama Rambler]

That distance requirement is to ensure thet meter indicates to specs under the worst conditions. If you don't have those runs the meter will still be pretty close. The worse setup you could have is a pair of 90's back to back or back to side on the inlet of the meter. Of course the closer you can get to the recommended distances the more accurate the meter will read but just how accurate do you really need to be?