Help choosing a new variable speed pump

[PoolStored]

This will work. The only downside case is when the pump fails for some reason isolated from the timer power. If power is cut to the timer, or timer turns off power you are fine.

If the pump fails, while the timer is still providing power, your flow switch becomes the primary safety, and not something we recommend.

For this reason, I installed a Current Sensing Relay.

Here is my thread on the CSR install. I use this device, CR4395-EH-120-110-X-CD-ELR-I. It senses current on one of the pump's 220v lines and switches 120V to my SWG. Current trip point is adjustable.

Picture Thread! SWCG add, plumbing cleanup, pump power interconnect! Might help someone...

Started this thread because @IUsedToSail asked about orientation of valves/check valves. Made me realize I didn't do a plumbing thread on my rebuild. Some may know my story, new pool owner last year (came with the house), I was PoolStored...then I found TFP. Pulled out the UV system and the...

www.troublefreepool.com

Here is the wiring. I'd put this after the timer and replace the words "Breaker" with "Timer"

 

[sande005]

PoolStored has a good idea. Besides failure, there may be times you want to turn the pump off, and might forget to turn off the SWCG. May not be an issue for a pretty short on/off cycle, but if you are doing other things (filter cleaning, etc) it then could be. So good to have the backup that will make sure things are really turned off.

What's the danger? The SWCG makes hydrogen gas as a by product. Not enough to power your car or anything - but enough to make tiny bubbles come out of the returns. And if no water is flowing, and it builds up in the generator...
That said, they all include a flow sensor that shuts down power when there is no flow. Some people depend on just that device- but that is meant to be a secondary safety feature, and not the primary way to sense whether flow is happening or not. In this case, always good to have both the belt and the suspenders.....

 

[Jahlon]

So I'm going through options now with my pool guy... The Waterway PD270 is obviously significantly less expensive than the Hayward TriStar. Is there any advantage of the Hayward over the Waterway, other than the fact that it's Hayward and would play well with automation with my Hayward SWG?

If not, I'll just get the Waterway.

 

[wireform]

They're pretty close so if automation is of no interest go with the waterway option.

 

[Woody007]

PoolStored has a good idea. Besides failure, there may be times you want to turn the pump off, and might forget to turn off the SWCG. May not be an issue for a pretty short on/off cycle, but if you are doing other things (filter cleaning, etc) it then could be. So good to have the backup that will make sure things are really turned off.

What's the danger? The SWCG makes hydrogen gas as a by product. Not enough to power your car or anything - but enough to make tiny bubbles come out of the returns. And if no water is flowing, and it builds up in the generator...
That said, they all include a flow sensor that shuts down power when there is no flow. Some people depend on just that device- but that is meant to be a secondary safety feature, and not the primary way to sense whether flow is happening or not. In this case, always good to have both the belt and the suspenders.....

PoolStored has a good idea. Besides failure, there may be times you want to turn the pump off, and might forget to turn off the SWCG. May not be an issue for a pretty short on/off cycle, but if you are doing other things (filter cleaning, etc) it then could be. So good to have the backup that will make sure things are really turned off.

What's the danger? The SWCG makes hydrogen gas as a by product. Not enough to power your car or anything - but enough to make tiny bubbles come out of the returns. And if no water is flowing, and it builds up in the generator...
That said, they all include a flow sensor that shuts down power when there is no flow. Some people depend on just that device- but that is meant to be a secondary safety feature, and not the primary way to sense whether flow is happening or not. In this case, always good to have both the belt and the suspenders.....

Thanks for the information. Good ideas.
If I need to turn the pump off, is it a bad thing to remove power from it? Like you said, there may be a time when I want to make sure the pump doesn't kick on and I could use the switch on the timer to cut the power. The knuckle heads that installed the SWCG had it where it was powered on all the time, even when the pump shutoff. It was that way for a couple of years before I discovered it shouldn't be relying on the flow switch to stop production.
How do you handle shutoff flow to switch multi-valve? I assume you can stop it from its control panel.
I don't have a VSP yet, so probably dumb questions. I'm trying to learn the right way to set it up.

 

[sande005]

A a lot depends on the specific pump/SWCG you end up with, and your existing installation. Some SWCG/Pump combinations can be wired so they get power directly from the pump motor, so if the pump is off, the SWCG is off. Some need a relay like PoolStored suggested. Mine uses a single timer that controls three separate things. By cutting the main power switch to the timer, everything shuts off for sure. The timer remembers all the settings even with no power, so when I restore power, everything just starts up again doing what it should at that time.
If your pump is programmable (if using the programmable speed settings), and remembers the time of day, then everything just returns to what it should be at the time when main power is restored.
Mine has a wrinkle in that the pump doesn't know the time of day - it's 24 hr period starts whenever the pump gets power. So I have to make sure to always have it programmed to run at some speed all the time. OR not use it's programming to not run, and instead depend on the timer to turn it on and off. If I had the pump by itself programmed for some "don't run" amount of time, by cutting the power on the timer, things could get out of synch, and the SWCG could run without the pump running when power comes back. So I don't do that. But mine is an old, retrofit motor. I'm pretty sure all new VS pumps that are programmable know the time of day, so don't have the issue I have.