sprinkler mystery

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Paulie

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Jul 12, 2012
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The other day I switched on my sprinkler pump & it made this BZZZZZ noise. Uh-oh! Since the pump was ~23 years old & had a gasket leak last year, I figgered it was locked up / frozen / dead.

So I got a brand new pump, a Flotec FP5162
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Went & hooked up the power. Testing 1-2-3...BZZZZ. Ah geez. An electrician bud told me how the wires should read volt-wise...& they looked hokay. WTF? :mad:

The only thing between the breaker & the pump was a timer, an Intermatic T101. It was ~10 years old but had been used only ~ once a month. So I bypassed it. And we're pumpy again...yay! :)

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My goof was ASSuming that a timer like this works sorta kinda permanently. Nope.
 
You sure have poor taste in pumps! Don't expect that one to last 23 years.

What voltage are you running to the pump. The T101 timer is a 115 volt timer. If the pump buzzed through the timer, it was getting power. So I don't know what the problem would have been. The T101 breaks the hot wire only and the neutral just passes through the box. So how did you bypass the timer?
 
Everything's 110. Yeah, the pump buzzing thru the timer was wacky. It was getting power, but not enuf to run. What made it REALLY nutz to this dummy was that the meter showed 110 thru the timer.

The motor puts a BIG load on the power & the timer couldn't handle it. The timer is SPST so I jest connected the in & out load lines. It really oughtta work more than the few times I used it. Junque!
 
You may have had a loose wire or a corroded wire in the timer. Intermatic timers are really a very fine piece of equipment. We have thousands of them operating Pool Pumps here in my area and we rarely have to do anything to them for years.
 

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