Hi Jim,
I have an off-grid solar panel system that constantly charges a 12V deep cycle battery bank. The battery bank is capable of storing over 200 amp hours, well above the Wayne 75 amp battery. My question is: if I were to connect this backup pump to the current solar battery bank and leave it unplugged from the wall (solar is capable of maintaining the load and keeping the batteries charged), would the controller run properly without ever being plugged into the wall? I don't want a constant alarm eating my batteries and the pump itself would be used only in emergencies when typical grid power is out. Is there a way to shut off the need for grid power? I prefer to keep the solar array seperate from the grid because it also supplies electricity for our sensitive elecronics, and it's more reliable in the event that I'm not home that the solar panels can theoretically power the pump endlessly. What are your thoughts?
Thanks,
Joe
Answer
Per the engineers at Wayne:
In theory this should work. In fact, one of the features that we built into the new ESP-25 is the elimination of the constant annoying alarm for lack of AC while installing the system. That alarm now only sounds if the power has established an AC connection and then it is removed either physically or by power outage. So if it is never hooked up to AC this alarm will be forever disabled. The rest of the board will not see the difference from a regular battery. The solar cells should work just fine assuming they are regulated and feeding a battery bank. The normal alarms when the pump kicks on and if the available voltage drops below the required threshold cannot be silenced. Just to be safe, if this type of application is going to be more than one or two units, I would try it out before committing to large quantities. There could be something in the circuitry I am overlooking that needs to see that AC signal, but my initial read is that the AC is only used for charging the battery. If you have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
p.s. This will only work on the new digital version of the ESP-25, not an old version or the ESP-15.
Was this answer helpful?