Pump Controller is "weak", yields low pressure

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forest

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I had some ancient (well, probably 1970's) pump controller on a 3/4hp single phase 230v pump at a depth of 300ft with a nominal water lever at about 125 feet. It pumped a ton of water. Not sure about gpm, but I would fill a 5 gallon bucket at the hydrant in about a minute. Shower pressure, hose pressure, etc were all well above adequate.

That was yesterday. That ancient controller bailed on me, and I happened to have a "Franklin 2801084915 Control box" that some moron well drillers that I hired once to "update" my well system had put on. At the time I had the well pipe, pump, wire and controller replaced. All seemed good except the pressure was crap. I was going to call another well service company because these guys were, as I mentioned, morons... but instead I tried putting the old controller on. It worked fine, so I left it.

Now, the Franklin gives me (seriously) about a gallon ever 5 minutes.

Anyway, what controller should I buy to get this thing working again?
 

forest

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Forgot to mention that the "service" guys that sold me this controller could very well have sold me a non-working product. It would have been just their "style."

Does a controller produce low pressure like this if the capacitor is blown or damaged or something?

Like maybe I need to replace this -->
 
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Texas Wellman

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They either run or not.

I suppose you are referring to the "control box" when you say controller. Simple to swap out to a new one.

My guess is that your pump is shot or you have a down-hole leak.
 

forest

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I thought that too... but when I first got this new control box (Franklin) my pressure went from great to nil... then I swapped in the old one (unknown brand), and I got my pressure back! That was two or so years ago...

Today the old one finally gave up the ghost, and I swapped the new one back in... crap water pressure.

So, it has to be the control box (not really a well man, so, hah, I thought it was called the controller).

Anyway... if I order a new one, I should just order the same one these morons put on? It looks like the right one when I look at zorotools... I just wonder why it doesn't work. At first (assuming the new box was good) I thought it was undersized or something. From what you are saying I should assume the new box is "bad" and order the same thing since it is correctly sized.

Thanks for the reply.
 
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forest

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[Solution]

Wow... for anyone that comes accross this thread in the future, it was going to be at least three days before I could get a replacement "control box"... so, in desperation I looked through the corroded parts and pieces in the old box and saw that it contained the exact same capacitor as the new one: an 86-103uF BMI cap: the one I linked in the link above.

The thing was totally coroded and the "bottom" that has the wire attachemt blades on it had fallen completely off of the cap. I got out my soldering iron and repaired it as best I could, then I popped out the cap in the new control box and put the old, repaired one in. Closed up the box and flipped the breaker... beautiful, copious flowing water. What a trip.

I still have a new box on order... but it turns out that somehow that capacitor had burned out or something, and the old one, amateurly repaired, did a fine job.

FYI!
 
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