Using Solar with Prologic PS4 + Hayward VSP Pump

[jhigg93761]

I have a quiz question for the smart Prologic users on the forum.

I have a Prologic PS4 and Hayward VSP pump. The solar actuator is hooked up on Valve 3. When valve 3 triggers it turns on the solar and kicks the RPM on the pump to what I have it preset for when solar is active. However... I have to turn the VSP pump up very high to prime the solar because my solar is on the second story roof and in the morning when the pump first turns on the VSP primes but, the actuator for solar is off at this time and will not prime the solar. Any idea from the tech folks how I can prime my solar when the actuator trips but, run it at the lowest RPM for energy effiecency.

Thanks!!!

 

[JasonLion]

You need to maintain positive pressure up at the panels to keep the vacuum breaker valve closed, so you really can't back down the pump speed very much at all when running the solar system.

 

[jongig]

I had thought about the pumping up to a roof some time ago and had an idea. When pumping up hill and back down you get the benefit of having the down ballance the up so that you only need to pump hard at the start of the pumping unless you have a vacuum breaker which to some degree defeats the down hill benefit. Why not add a small electronic valve to the vacuum breaker and then add a second air escape valve. You could run the valve from your automation or just on a daily timer. I'm guessing you want the water down at night due to chilling but I'm sure it's not that much water. This leads me to the next question, why not close the vacuum valve off. If freezing is an issue than it would be rather easy to program that into the valve automation.

 

[JasonLion]

jongig, that doesn't really get you very much. To take advantage of the downward pressure balancing the upward pressure you need to have the panels running at significant negative pressure. However, the panels are flexible and too much negative pressure will collapse the tubes and prevent water flow. You do pick up a couple of psi because you can go from positive pressure (to close the vacuum breaker) to neutral pressure, but you can't really go to negative pressure.

You don't want to close off the vacuum breaker because it is needed to allow the panels to drain down when the pump is off.