Variable speed Pool pumps, France

[Mike Johnson]

A lot of guys around my area of France have spent over €1500.00 on variable speed pumps for their pools, the saving on electrical consumption can be quite considerable over a year, but the cost of the pumps against a standard pump at €400.00 seems to beg the question can't a controller be used to vary the speed on a standard pump at a greatly reduced cost?

Mike

 

[LeeH]

Reducing the speed of a typical induction motor by half can yield savings of 80% with modern inverters.

I can only presumes the pumps you mention just have a inverter included.

 

[Mike Johnson]

It would seem so, although they have lots of programming options as well, talking to some of the owners they say after the honeymoon period they just revert to slow speed for 20hrs and only use the fast speed to back wash the filter, anyone have any suggestions of the type of variable speed unit to use?

Mike

 

[Bobster]

Ask the people who have had them installed?

 

[LeeH]

You could look at the Schneider ATV 900 range, they have smart functions although I’ve never used said functions.

Or a other brand with smart relays functions or a dumb drive with a smart relay/raspberry PI ETC.

But like rob said, ask the people in the pool club. Unfortunately us sparks generally don’t have pools....

 

[Mike Johnson]

The people that have them fitted are the proprietary system pumps at €1500,00 what I am looking for is a variable speed controller to supply a €400,00 standard pump.

Thanks LeeH I will look into your suggestions.

I never said I had a pool either .

Mike

 

[LeeH]

Those drives I mentioned also have power monitoring and logging so might be just the job.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Thanks Lee I will see what they can do and the cost to see if they are viable/cost effective.

Mike

 

[Mike Johnson]

There seems to be lots available:
eBay - https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/232451571380?chn=ps&adgroupid=49962971442&rlsatarget=pla-380178324840&abcId=1129946&adtype=pla&merchantid=101746570&poi=&googleloc=1007076&device=c&campaignid=974960578&crdt=0

just have to sort out which ones meet a pool pump criteria i.e. on off times and at what speed etc.

Mike

 

[Mike Johnson]

Found this one as a proprietary unit: Clever-Pool Pump Inverter | Pool Pump Energy Saving | World of Pools - http://www.worldofpools.com/cleverpool-pump-inverter-details.htm seems to fit the bill, will investigate further.

 

[LeeH]

That seems ideal.

 

[Mike Johnson]

I think it is, just lost one on e-bay at £100.00 off list price, never mind at least with a new one I get the full guarantee, just need to check the pump I can't remember what HP it is.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Thanks to the mods for unlocking this thread so I can update, I now have a lot of data from a year of running my pool with the variable frequency drive I installed, this was a Invertek Optidrive, there are a myriad number of adjustments to the drive available and it took a while to get my head around them, however
With the Invertek drive fitted at 35Htz = there was an overall saving of approx £80.00/season, the main benefit of fitting the drive and running at 35Htz is the reduction in overall noise around the pool of 2Db, this may not seem a lot, but is if your pump is close to your main seating area its significant, however continuing on in trying to make my pool less expensive to run I investigated alternative source's for the chemicals needed to keep it clean, where I got them from and what I used will not be of interest on here, but overall the saving was 57% over a season, that's over €400.00 off to the local vineyard.

(953)