Why buy a Spring Manufactured Controller
Why buy a Spring (Europe) manufactured controller?
Spring are an electronics company we design, test and build a wide range of electronics used in all sorts of applications. Travel through an Airport, Sea Port you will find our electronics there. Sports stadia, security applications access control applications, touch screen technology, GPS, remote RF control and more.
In short when you buy a Spring manufactured control you know it is designed for the purpose by a professional electronics company.
In our controls, you will find a wide range of features designed to protect the controller, pump, and system. More importantly, we build in a range of safety features V11 into the units.
CE Compliant
Our controllers are independently tested and meet all current EMC LVC standards conforming to CE and FCC.
What is the CE, Mark?The CE mark is a European wide conformity mark which indicates that a product meets the essential requirements of the relevant UK/EU directives and standards for that product.
The CE mark is a mandatory requirement which enables free movement of products within the European market to which the requirements apply.
The manufacturer declares that the product is in conformity with all the essential health, safety, and environmental requirements to achieve CE marking.
Products to which CE marking applies must be CE compliant before they are “placed on the market” in the UK/EU. This applies equally to products imported from outside the EU and to those manufactured within the UK/EU. CE compliance is the responsibility of the person or company placing the product on the market e.g. manufacturer, importer, distributor, or retailer. An importer takes on the responsibilities of the manufacturer to ensure that the product continues to comply with the CE marking requirements.
This means you have a verified and designed for purpose unit that is produced by a professional electronics company to established international standards
Over current protection:
The V11 controllers carry out continuous checks to ensure that high current is not drawn. The high current draw could be a symptom of a worn pump motor Or poor connectors. As the pump motor brushes wear the motor becomes less efficient at pumping water as current is turned into heat. The pump has to work harder to overcome the inefficiency drawing more and more current.
More of this current is turned into heat making the pump hotter still. Without the protection provided by the controller this high current and heat feeding a fault condition potentially could cause cable outer to melt or in extreme cases catch fire.
Worn – Rusted – or Loose connector can also become energy wasting resistors causing the pump to draw more and more current to compensate. Connectors should only ever be warm to touch if they are very hot It is time to replace them.
The over current protection also protects the controller processor and critical components from damage in the event of high current.
Heat Protection
Copper is not a perfect conductor of electrical current. A small amount of current will be turned into heat, you will notice the pump motor, cables and controller can be warm to the touch after a days use.
The Spring range of controllers is designed to return unused current back the battery and also have a means of dissipating heat to prevent access temperature build up on the PCB.
In testing, we push the control to extremes well beyond that seen in normal use.
Our controllers are able to operate in ambient air temperature up to 40C. By this, I mean that the control will operate normally even if the air temperature during the day reaches 40C. The control will also operate happily in temperatures to minus 5c. Electronics are far better coping with cold than heat.
As part of our testing, a control was fitted to a pump running at maximum for long periods the Temperature of the Control enclosure did not exceed 52C with the internal PCB temperature being 81C.
These temperatures are far in excess of what would be seen in a system. For a control to begin to melt temperature would have to be well above 300C at this point the PCB may begin to smoke However it will not flame. In other words, this is the equivalent of placing the controller in your oven and turning temperature to maximum.
Note: It should be said that simply fitting the correct rated fuse will avoid any possibility of current feeding a fault condition to these extreme temperatures.
If the Control is experiencing very high temperature it will shut down the pump to protect itself and the system.
Pressure Switch Detection:
The Controller will display the PS message in one of two conditions
1. High pressure has caused the pump pressure switch to activate. The controller is not activating the pressure switch in this case. It is giving information.
2. An electrical fault has developed
Note: The controller carries out an electrical test to ensure the pump and pressure switch are in the circuit. If the pump can not detect the pump due to damaged cable/connectors the control will display PS (pressure switch) as a default message. This is one of the crucial protections we put in place. The control no longer passes any current to the pump but instead retests the condition every few seconds. This prevents a dangerous condition occurring for example ( a loose moving or damaged connection touching ground (Van panels) because the controller is now limiting the energy.
Connectors and terminal blocks can also be a source of volt drop for this reason regularly inspecting your connectors replacing any that are worn or damaged are a good idea. Also, check connections are secure with good contact to the copper core.
Check for any damaged cable where insulation has been chaffed exposing the copper core not only is there a risk of a short knocking out the fuse the exposed core can be a source of volt drop and become very hot in some circumstance,s this heat can be sufficient to melt insulation and fuse increasing the risk of fire.
An Issue with old connectors is corrosion something that is difficult to avoid in a wet environment such as WFP so keeping connections as dry as possible by placing cable into conduit is a good idea. Corrosion will increase the resistance of the connector and in turn, volt drop across the connector.
A badly worn or corroded connector can become an energy wasting resistor. If your connectors are excessively hot they either need replacing or tightening, as your are wasting precious battery power.
The harder the pump works, the more current will be drawn. With poor connections in a system, this will increase the energy lost in heat. Because Power = I*I*R (current squared multiplied by the connector's resistance). So the power lost in a bad connector is actually increasing exponentially. Compared to the energy consumed by the pump this is small. But every little helps!
A good connector should only feel warm to the touch in normal use.
Fuse
All electrical systems should be fused to provide protection to the equipment and cabling. A fuse is a thermal device reacting to heat created in a short circuit and or high current. Not fitting a fuse could mean that a fault situation progressively gets worse. For example, if your pump, battery, cables or controller develops a fault or is old a component can go short circuit. With no fuse to open and stop current the component will just get hotter and hotter in rare cases this can cause a fuse, cables to smoke.
You should never exceed the fuse rating advised by the manufacturer. For a fuse to open in a fault condition almost instantly (a few hundred milliseconds ) it can require current of 2.2 to 3 times the rating of the fuse. We recommend 7.5 amp fuses so the actual current to open the fuse may be as high as 22.5 amps.
Overrating the fuse is dangerous.
For example, a 15 amp fuse will happily supply current up to 15 amps but will not blow. (to blow it could require current of up to 45 amps) The fuse will however gradually get hot over time in testing I have seen a 7.5 amp fuse heat to 62C and not blow
Imagine just how hot a 15 or 20 amp fuse could get with a fault condition that creates heat but not enough to clear the fuse!!! add in poor cables and connectors and the risk of fire in the cables are increased.
If a fuse has blown due to a fault the fuse is doing its job.
Please locate the source of the fault and rectify it before replacing the fuse.
Please do not simply fit a larger fuse As above this means even higher current will be required to open the fuse If the fault is a short circuit all you are doing is heating the fault to a point where it could begin to burn
Reverse Polarity Diode
DC is direct current meaning that current can only pass one way through a circuit. When connecting a DC device care should be taken to ensure the correct polarity of the battery and device is observed. Positive to positive and negative to negative.
Reversing the polarity will damage the circuit.
We place a diode on the power supply of the controller so that in the event of miss wiring the diode will blow protecting the processor and critical components.
It is worth note that a correctly rated fuse as above will also protect the control in the event of miss-wiring.
Value-added features
Operate with any hose or microbore: Each system and user is different and has different requirements. The V11 is designed to operate with a wide variety of Hose and Microbore. Simply calibrate the controller to the system and away you go.
Auto Calibration
As above the controller is designed to operate with a wide range of 12V 9 amp pumps. The controller will happily run up to 150 PSI pumps.
Calibrating the controller to your system Is easy and can be completed either manually or automatically.
Correctly calibrated the control should stop the pump well before the pressure switch needs to. Having the control stop the pump reduces battery current draw and wear on the pump, hose, connectors and reduces water use.
Smart Battery management
Batteries can be expensive, most manufacturers say a battery should never be depleted below 10.5V below this point the lead cells become damaged and less able to hold a charge.
With this in mind, the Spring manufactured digital controller has an accurate volt meter built in.
A controller will reduce the amount of current drawn from your battery. We go further as any unused current will become heat. As a circuit heats up it becomes an energy wasting resistor. The greater the resistance the hotter the component becomes.
Our V11 range controllers pass any unused current back to the battery. Meaning your control and pump run cooler. It also means your battery charge is extended.
Dead end:
The advanced V11 range is designed to be the most efficient controller available. When water flow is stopped, the control is designed to stop the pump quickly and smoothly reducing the amount of system pressure and current drawn from the battery.
Reducing pressure build-up means fewer split hoses, blown connectors, blown pump motors and costly downtime.
Voltmeter:
All our digital controller have built in volt meters to accurately measure a voltage at the battery. The V11 range is designed to measure volts as at the battery terminals.
A volt meter is an invaluable tool for identifying volt drop, damaged cable, managing the battery and much more.
When you buy a Spring manufactured controller. You are buying many 1000,s of hours of research and development from a professional electronics company.
You are buying a designed for purpose unit with many value added features.
You are buying ongoing support for your controller and advice on to use it efficiently
The controllers have a full 12-month warranty
You are buying a safe reliable control that conforms to all UK/EU standards
In short you are investing in your business. Reducing the risk of costly failures, reducing water use, extending the battery life and much more. You are buying the best