Pump damage vs. pump saver

I just put in a well in dry Southern California. I need all the water I can get from it to keep my landscaping alive. With careful study and programming of my valve controller, I am barely meeting my needs in the 100 degree heat we've been having. Since every minute counts, and there is overhead in filling the irrigation pipes, I have been running the valves such that the cycle finishes but the pump saver trips toward the end of refilling the pressure tank.

Is this harmful to my pump? Should I not push the system so far?

Thanks.
Pat.

psteus said:

I have been running the valves such that the cycle finishes but the pump saver trips toward the end of refilling the pressure tank.

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What is it tripping on, undercurrent, dry run, etc.?

valveman said:

What is it tripping on, undercurrent, dry run, etc.?

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I don't know how to tell whether it is undercurrent or dry run. I just suspect I ran out of stack and pump vacuum is broken. If I cut my valve times down, I can prevent it, but I lose a precious minute of sprinkler time. Of course, I don't want to damage the pump so I'll cut back if it is important.

If you're running the pump dry that will kill a pump fairly quickly.

Or is the pump overheating and the thermal overload shuts it off?

It may help to start some of your valves at a later time,like in program B.This would give your hole time to rest before you pump it again.Upper

valveman said:

What is it tripping on, undercurrent, dry run, etc.?

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I cut back on the run time for my valves and spaced apart the run times. I watched the behavior carefully for several valve cycles, and I think what is happening is that I have plenty of water, but when the pump turns off, presumably because the tank's pressure switch tells it to, the pump saver trips.

Could this be a problem with the pump saver sensitivity setting? Is my 1 month old pump getting flaky on me?

Try adjusting the sensitivity. It is probably not the pump but the pump saver that is flakey.

valveman said:

Try adjusting the sensitivity. It is probably not the pump but the pump saver that is flakey.

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I think everything is fine now. Previously I was getting the dry well signal from the LEDs (run light blinking) after more than half of the valve cycles.

I set the sensitivity to 10 o/clock, did the Cal procedure, and verified that the pump saver trips on a dry well condition by running it dry one time. Since then I have had no tripping at the end of good valve runs. I am guessing that after the pump got ‘broken in’ things changed with the calibration or the sensitivity and that nothing bad is going on.