Hi, this is Mike with RPS Solar Pumps and today I'm going to go over four different methods in
order to shut off your solar pump when the tank is full. While some of this is specific to our exact
system, many can be applied to both AC pumps and other solar pumps. The first and easiest
method is our stainless steel tank full sensor that comes standard with all of our three-inch
pump kits. All this is is a stainless steel outside with a stainless steel probe on the
inside. It hangs on top of your stock tank and the other side connects up to the controller when the
water level rises and bridges the two contacts it tells the controller is shut off. One of the
benefits of this is there's no moving parts and it's just stainless steel, so there's nothing to
fail over time. The second and also very simple method is using a standard float valve which
comes with all of our Pro kits. And you'll see there's three wires coming out of the back to
our four -- normally open -- two or four normally closed. So this works with AC pumps and with
solar pumps regardless of the input type. We attach our weight onto our cable and hang it
inside of the tank. When the water rises and the float goes up, it's gonna tell the pump to shut
off. When we use some water and the float goes down, it's gonna tell the pump to turn off. The
stainless-steel probe and the float are by far the easiest to set up, but the one downside is you're
going to have to run a wire from your tank over to your pump or your controller in order to send
that signal back to turn on and off. I have two other methods here that do not require wires and
they're a little bit harder to install, but I'll go over how to put those in and you'll see that
they're very simple systems. The first method that doesn't require wires I'm going to talk about is
using a pressure switch in a float valve in order to tell your pump when to turn off. This will work
with both an AC pump and a solar pump if you get the right type of pressure switch. For our solar
pump we need a reverse action pressure switch. We have a whole video on a reverse action pressure
switches if you want to learn more about it. So first we're going to install our float valve in
the tank. There are many different types on the market. This is the one we carry. It goes in the top
of your tank or a livestock trough, and when the water rises it's going to cause the output to
shut off. Now when the output shuts off, the pump is going to continue to run and the pressure is
going to increase in your line. And so back at our wellhead next to our pump we're going to install
our pressure switch. Now when this pressure switch senses the pressure rising in that line and we hit
the high-pressure cutoff, then the contacts are going to either open or close depending on the
type of switch we have. For our reverse action in the contacts are gonna close and that's going to
send a signal by wire to the controller to tell it to shut off. One of the downsides is this requires
a little bit of tweaking to sometimes get to work reliably. If you have any sort of leak in your tank
full shutoff, then you're going to cycle on and off frequently, so you want to make sure all your
fittings are tight and you don't have any leaking. The other thing is if your tank is located higher
than your wellhead then you need to account for the pressure it takes in order to pump from the
wellhead up to your tank. You may need to adjust the screws inside in order to dial it in for your
exact application, but the great thing is there's no wires required. So once you get this set up it's
just gonna run and use the pressure inside the line in order to tell the pump when to turn on
and off. The last method -- and my personal favorite -- is our wireless tank full shutoff system. This
eliminates all the wires and trenching that you have to do otherwise for one of the other methods.
There's two boxes here. One is our transmitter, one's our receiver. Our transmitter is located up by the
tank and our receiver goes down by our well pump. In our well pump controller there's a wireless
link in between these two, and so when the tank is full, it wirelessly tells the receiver to shut
off. The receiver tells the pump to shut off. The best thing is this is one of the only ones in the
market that operates on solar power, so you don't have to have AC or other power sources located at
your transmitter or your receiver station. This model is made for our solar well pumps and very
shortly we have the next generation coming out that will also work for AC pumps and any solar
pump on the market. This is a great option. We find anywhere longer than around 300 feet of
wire run -- especially if you're trenching it -- you're gonna save money by using the wireless tank full
system. We have hundreds of these on the field all working reliably every day. This makes installation
a breeze. You don't have to worry about trenching. You don't have to do it about wires. And especially
you don't have to worry about adjusting your pressure switch in order to get that method to
work. This is our basic plug-and-play option. You set it and you forget it. So that is four great
methods in order to shut off your pump when the tank is full. We always recommend to install a
tank full sensor. It's going to maximize the life of your system so the pump is not running when
it doesn't need to be. If you're going less than 100 feet, then both the stainless steel probe
or the tank floats are both good options. When you're going farther than 100 feet then I do
recommend our wireless tank full system, or if you want to dial it in our pressure shutoff as
well. So this is Mike with RPS Solar Pumps. If you need a solar pump, give us a call at
(888) 637-4493 or visit us at the link in the description below.