Variable Speed Pump Schedule Assistance

[simo711]

Hiya folks. I had my first pool school for my newly built pool today (see signature for info). It went smooth but the person told me to 'play' with the schedule/rpm's. Instead of doing this, I was wondering if someone with the same (or similar) VSP as me (Hayward Super Pump 2603VSP) would be able to provide their summer/winter schedule with rpm's based upon my pool information in the signature.

Thanks for the help!

FYI, I have read the TFP Pool School!

 

[Jimrahbe]

simo,

Here is my standard answer and it is why your pool school instructor said to play with it...

Each pool is a little different... You generally run a pump for three reasons:

1. To keep surface debris moving and being pushed into the skimmers. The more debris the more often you need to run the pump.

2. If you have a Salt Water Chlorine Generator (SWCG) you'll need to run it long enough to generate the amount of chlorine needed.

3. To circulate the water to ensure the chlorine is effectively distributed throughout the pool. Two or three hours per day is all that is needed for this to happen in most pools.

There really is no one answer that fits everyone.

I run my pump at 1,200 RPM most of the time because at 1,100 the flow switch is intermittent.
A couple of times a day I ramp the pump up to 2,000 for an hour to help the skimmers do their job.
To run my waterfall and have it look the way I want, my pump needs to run at 2,900 RPM. (Usually only runs 10 minutes a day to keep the pipes chlorinated)

The point is.. your pool is different than mine, so you need to set the speeds that work for you.

Thanks for posting,

Jim R.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

You have an SWG so you need to run the pump for enough time to counteract daily FC loss. Figure out your target FC level using the FC/CYA charts here. A clean and clear pool will lose about 3ppm/day (2-4 is the range) and so, with a T-15 cell producing 1.25lbs of chlorine gas per day, your FC would go up by 11ppm.

3 *(24/11) = ~6.5 hours of run time. That is, of course, with the cell running at 100% output.

So I would start by running your pump 7 hours per day and see where things go. The pump speed(s) are dictated by need - for most SWG's, you need a minimum flow rate of 15GPM to satisfy the flow switch. SO play with the pump speeds until you can create a low flow error; that will be the absolute lowest you can go. I would target about 100RPM more than the minimum value for the SWG.

If you need more run time to do skimming of the pool water but not necessarily generate chlorine, then just extend the schedule a bit with a second, lower RPM speed on either end of the chlorine generation schedule. Skimmers work best at lower pump speeds and but you have to play with it a bit to see how the debris moves on your pool surface. I actually used a few ping-pong balls that I placed near the skimmer to see how well it draws them in. Food dye doesn't work very well because it tends to diffuse and dissipate.

Every pool is different so there's no one scheduled that anyone can recommend as "the best". What works in my pool might be totally inadequate for other pools.

 

[simo711]

Thank you both! The math behind this is catching me off guard....been away from using simple math far too long. I appreciate the advice and tips.