Automatic shower pump

[nicknorman]

A better way would be to turn off after a few seconds, and then do another 5 seconds about 5 minutes later. This way you'll catch the water once it's it's all drained from the sides of the shower.

Yes that's true, but unfortunately the Empirbus config doesn't allow me to do that. In practice I don't find water in the plug hole some time after the shower, I think the gulper is pretty good at pulling most of the water out of the large diameter hose under the shower drain, so when the drips collect there afterwards, the level remains well below the bottom of the shower drain hole.

[Robbo]

Yes that's true, but unfortunately the Empirbus config doesn't allow me to do that. In practice I don't find water in the plug hole some time after the shower, I think the gulper is pretty good at pulling most of the water out of the large diameter hose under the shower drain, so when the drips collect there afterwards, the level remains well below the bottom of the shower drain hole.

 

Off topic, which Empirbus do you have? Going by memory I think you mentioned it's the CLC, I think the NXT one can do.

[nicknorman]

Off topic, which Empirbus do you have? Going by memory I think you mentioned it's the CLC, I think the NXT one can do.

Yes the CLC. The NXT is much more sophisticated but on the other hand a lot more expensive, and as I mentioned to you before, it is a centralised system vs CLC being a decentralised system. Ie a fault in the main unit would take the whole shebang out. The only thing I would like is the ability to turn on at a preset dimmed level, that allows "scene" lighting and such things as powering a pump at a permanently reduced flow. With CLC you can only turn on at full brightness, and then subsequently manually dim.

 

It probably is possible with CLC with some jiggery pokery and a relay - a relay on the pump output which sends an "on" command to another input channel when it relaxes (turns off), with delayed on and auto-off. But as I said, I don't really see the need.

Edited November 12, 2014 by nicknorman

[smileypete]

Just wanted to add, the mains gulper kit for houses comes with a 24V gulper, flow switch and a board with a transformer plus delay off timer with a few different settings.

 

I bought such a kit off Ebay, a while back, here's the timer bit having dug it out the other day:

 

 

If anyone wants, I could post a circuit diagram, it's pretty simple and based around a 2N7000 FET transistor, a relay and a few other bits.

 

The resistor values for the time delay would need adjusting for 12V instead of 24V, but shouldn't be too hard to find equivalents.

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~

[nicknorman]

You'd probably need to change the relay too, 3A at 24v is 3A at 12v as far as the relay is concerned and probably not enough for a pump.