On Oct 30, 11:52*pm, Bill wrote:
On 10/30/2011 12:06 PM, Stuart Wheaton wrote:





On 10/30/2011 11:46 AM, Karl Townsend wrote:
Got water again. SHMBO is happy. I guess I'll never teach her to crap
in a bucketVBG I feel kind of dumb. The control box has motor
overloads. Only had the pump since '82 and didn't know that. At least
it was a cheap fix.

OK, the problem was short cycling. Air bladders out of air and pump
running 15 seconds to make pressure. I'd like to build a better mouse
trap. I'm thinking of a short cycle alarm. Get a timer relay that
trips when power is applied. If power drops before timer runs out,
apply power to buzzer. Should be just a few relays and wiring. But my
brain is pea size when it comes to EE logic. Can somebody draw this
up? Or, I'm open to another idea.

Karl

Install an air pressure sensor on the air side to alert you when the
pressure falls too low?

I think I'd use a 555 timer configured for whatever you think a minimum
run time should be, use the circuit from the app note that starts the
timer on rising voltage. *power the timer from a wall wart running on
the primary power, trigger it (start it) with pump start. *Use a
standard latch circuit to set an alarm if the power to the motor is off
when the timer expires.

I was thinking this would be a good application for an AVR or some
such microcontroller. Wasn't Karl working on a temerature sensing
thing with a micro a while back - something about radio interference?
This would be a good add-on for that project.