Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Need help with Solar timer relay for aerator

Hey guys, having some issues with a new pump motor running on my existing timer relay.
Thomas 107DC24 runs great from it.. New Ingersoll Rand brushless motor does not.
I'm adding a very simple drawing to show what I am doing. I have purchased about 1200 bucks worth of timers and have yet to find one that will work. All they do is "click, click, click", but if I run 24v leads from "load" of solar controller, pump runs great.
Here is my over-simplified drawing.. maybe someone can add something...

Snipe,

Does the timer assembly itself pass the current for the motor? Or does it toggle a relay? Just wasn't sure if there are two separate devices. Since the old pump works through the timer/relay, I wonder is there any possibility that there is some sort of amp limiter fail safe that is causing the circuit to reopen prematurely?

Timer controls relay. It is a single unit. start amps are very slightly higher on brushless pump but very nearly the same running amps.
All timer relays I've tried are at the least 20A, biggest is 50A.
I have more money in timer relays now than I do in the pump... Nobody with any pump customer support can answer my question.
I sent a text to Highflyer, hoping he will catch it and see what he says..he's one smart cookie on this solar stuff.

You are powering from the Battery? Possible that the new motor is pulling more to start than the battery is able to provide?

I remember the days of trying to start a car with a dead battery and all I would get was a click. It had juice, just not enough to start the motor...

Highflyer, will be a lot better help than me.

Something you might consider before he reaches out. There is a possibility that when the relay closes ... the timer or relay solenoid is starved power and disengages. Possible reasons could be that its power is sourced downstream of the load. The current should flow from negative to positive and so just double check that the timer and the solenoid power are coming from a source upstream of the motor. May not work or might already be set up that way. Just an idea for you to try.

The diagram suggests that the relay is on the downstream side of the load. If it gets power from the motor lead then changing it to other side might help.

System is 2-200w panels in series to 2 100Ahr LiFePO4 batts in series-Azz-loads of power. Victron charge control with Charge (Bulk) absorbtion and float voltages programmed per highflyer( verified correct).
Here's the actual timer relay, wired as instructed which is very close to the simplified drawing I posted.

Wire from left to right
There are 4 male terminals on timer,
1-Load + Plus jumper to terminal 3
2- Load Grnd plus Grnd to motor.
3- Jumper from Term 1.
4- motor +
Timer settings are kept by lithium batt but only for about a week unless batt power is hooked up. By design.
Timer is always hot on batt terminals.
Contact is made through + wire between load and motor.

As a side note, this is 2.6 running amps...
I'm running lower capacity LiFePO4 batts in series on my 50A , 24V trolling motor.

This is how I understand your timer and the circuits. Please correct me if this not correct. In this configuration, the motor is in parallel with the timer/solenoid circuit and so my earlier suggestion would not be valid. From this, it looks like you should be having no issues but there is one thing that I didn't draw in. The jumper from 1 to 3. I couldn't see the terminals but given the proximity of leads it kind of looked a little like there were three with double male posts that you could connect to (as a opposed to 4 separate terminals). As drawn I don't see any problems but I don't understand the purpose of the jumper. What is its purpose? Can it be temporarily removed without harming anything?

The timer requires power all of the time, the jumper is just to send power to the contact which when closed completes circuit to give power to motor.
I "could" run a separate wire from Load to #3 without the jumper, but function is the same.

OK. So the power for triggering the relay goes through the jumper rather than internally. Wish I could help ... hopefully highflyer is able to help you with this.

I'm curious Snipe. What happens if you bypass the timer so the pump would run 24/7 (as a test).

Looking for ways to isolate the part that is having trouble vs the system as a whole.

From what I could see online and past experience with timers I was thinking you would end up with something like this

Has to be 3 locations on control for separation of PV-Batt-Load. Timer has to be between load on control and motor for control to protect from under voltage or high discharge.
Load (output) is very precisely controlled where batt ranges from 26v to 29v.

It runs perfect if going from Load direct to motor-this is my exact issue. The timer/relay is the issue but I included the diagram to explain what I was doing.
The past 4 motors have operated just fine. I have 3 ingersoll Rands and none of them will start from these timers (7), unless I go direct to load leads which would indicate the capacity of the relay in not strong enough but a 50A relay won't work.

Very strange. That side of the timer should just a direct pass through. I'm unfamiliar with the 24VDC stuff but have wired many 120/220V and 277/480V timers. Just a thought....what if the timer relay closed something that had very little amp draw on it?

I don't know what your set-up looks like over there but a 24v definite purpose contactor 2-4 pole would solve any amperage issue the timer is having. Timer would only be closing the contact of a smaller item and allowing the power to pass through on the contacts and have next to no amp draw on the timer or timer relay. This could be configured to run multiple tanks or side by side ponds off of one timer.

Seems odd to have to close a contact with a contact but....

Let me know if you want me to draw something up.

I did a Google search of "timer relay just clicks" and the first thing that popped up was ...


Given the configuration, lower voltage available to the coil is the common variable. Snipe you could verify by testing voltage between terminals 1 and 2 at the time of start up. If you see a significant drop in voltage as the timer triggers ... then a rise and drop again with every click ... then low voltage to the coil(solenoid) is the probably the cause. So I can think of two ways to fix it.

1. One is to follow boondoggle's suggestion of just connecting the timer relays power to the battery terminals. I think in that configuration all you might lose is power when the battery is bad. IOWs you may not get the benefit of Solar Power when the battery is bad and cannot take a charge. (But I am not sure of that). You also may not get some of the protection the controller unit provides to its load circuit (if in fact there is protection).

2. You could run the jumper to the coil (terminal 3) to the battery positive terminal. The negative terminals of the battery and controller negative load terminals should be in common. If so then all that changes is that there is no controller between the coils positive source. It's power will be isolated from the motor's circuit and should be completely unaffected by the motor's draw on the controller's load circuit.

Of the two solutions, I like the 2nd best because whatever benefits the controller might provide the motor circuit (if any) would still be wired in. OK, I just had a pause. The first may be better and here is possibly why. If the motor is drawing down the voltage excessively on the controllers load circuit then the controller itself may be experiencing the limits of its load supplying capability. I know very little about solar controllers and whether this can harm your controller. But if the coil keeps the relay closed then the condition of overload will persist until the motor gets to spinning. If you are satisfied that this is OK ... e.g. you have already mentioned that the motor starts when directly connected to load terminals of the controller and felt the operation was normal ... then you could proceed with 2.

Not a pro at this but the reasoning behind the option I showed it that it provides "clean" or predictable power. Some of the high-end electronics use this very same format to ensure that the TV, computers or motors always have the same stable power source. You've seen these in offices where the server or computers have a battery backup with a surge protector. Electronics don't like variable power in the way voltage increases or drops. That is where things start to get hot and the smoke gets let out.
In the application of solar to a DC pump I would say this is really important. Low and no light conditions will be 100% on stored power. Those batteries are almost the same as having that deep water refuge for the fish in hot or cold months. Used when needed only.

The reason I mentioned the 3-4 pole contactor was the possibility that the timer relay can't support the load of the motor. The change to this application makes the timer relay power a 24vdc coil that draws next to no wattage/amperage. The coil would energize, and the contacts would close allowing power to be sent to the pump. These are very common in home appliances like air conditioners. The key to this is finding a contactor that has a 24vdc coil. When I googled these lots of 24vAC units came up.

Snipe, another option may be to install a capacitor. Did a search on that and there were a couple of sites that cover how to calculate the size required.

A capacitor will hold charge and discharge at startup. You need enough charge to prevent the voltage from going low enough to open the relay. The coil is compressing a spring and there is a minimum voltage needed to supply that power that overcomes the spring..

Boondoggle,

In your last post, I took it that you were recommending a second relay and then use the timer relay to trigger it. I think that would work but the timer can't be connected to the load terminals of the controller if the motor is. The motor will draw down the voltage to a level where the timer relay opens. Some isolation would be required or some modification to maintain voltage would be needed.

You are correct JPSDad.

I think the capacitor you mention and the battery wiring option I mention are the same. I suspect, and I think you do too, that the problem Snipe is having is due to low power. There's a bottleneck in here either at the controller, or timer relay. I say this because when the timer is removed the pump runs fine. Leading me to believe that he's lost some capacity in the timer itself.

Snipe's trouble with the pump only having trouble when the timer is added has (2) possible problems IMHO.

*** Problem 1 - pump is drawing too much power at start up for the PV/Controller to operate it.

This fix to this would be to add a capacitor, you mentioned, or connect the battery to available power of the pump. Either of these solves the problem of not enough power.

*** Problem 2 - pump is drawing to much power and overloading the contacts inside the timer.

The fix to this would be to add a 24vdc contactor to the wiring. This allows the same timer to be used but the timer is powering a much lower wattage/amperage coil.

In either of the drawings I show the batteries are still the buffer for pump start up and still charged by the PV to maintain their usefulness.

Automotive uses this same application. The Battery provides power at start-up and the alternator charges the battery while the car is in use. If the belt that goes over the alternator is broken or removed....the car runs until the battery is dead. When applied here, Snipe's clicking noise is the big indicator of low power much like on a car with a low/dead battery when you turn the key. Click but the engine won't turn over to start. If I were a betting man, wiring the batteries in as a buffer or adding the capacitor you mentioned puts bubbles in the water. Adding the contactor only fixes a problem with the power overloading timer relays (I don't think this is occurring).

I feel confident that as wired in your diagram above that this would work for Snipe. It would require purchasing the additional relay.

Even so, my hunch is that their is nothing wrong with the capacity of Snipe's timer relay. Instead, what I suspect is that the Ingersoll Rand motor is trying to draw more current than can be delivered by the controller. In other words, I think if the controller was instead one that could deliver more amps ... that the timer relay that is there would be working correctly.

So long as the motor gets its needed power when running and its safe for the controller to run that motor I think I would try the 2nd option I recommended. If there are doubts about the controller, I would just hook all power to the battery. The controller will still charge the battery but the battery can deliver all the amps that the timer coil and Ingersoll Rand motor need at start up. The advantage of testing either one of those options is that ... if it were to work ... one could confirm that low voltage at the timer relay's coil was the cause of problem, that the timer relay is sufficient, and that the motor's draw at startup exceeds the controllers capacity. If it didn't work, it would suggest that timer relay is at least part of the problem.

A capacitor could help. It might also provide some level of protection for the controller by reducing the initial demand at startup.

Love to see how this turns out. I think we are both on the same page J. Please keep us posted Snipe.

I think you just nailed the problem!
Instead of jumper, I DO need to run a separate lead... Just like console depthfinder shutting off when you start the engine. Need mo POWA.
I believe you are both on the right track here..

Got it working Snipe?

I believe Tim Allen on Home Improvement stated that MO POWA is the solution to EVERY mechanical and electrical problem!