intermittent water pumping

rydmohr · September 2013

Thanks in advance, hope this is something you guys can help me with. My wife wants to purchase one of these tower gardens. Link-
https://www.towergarden.com/online-store/tower-garden-growing-system
Looks like a great hobby type thing for her and may work quite well. Normally I steer clear of her things and let her do her own stuff but, with this thing, I made a little tactical error. I suggested we run it with solar. Apparently I made the solar option sound fun and easy because she is all into the idea.

My problem is I have no experience with battery systems, water flow, or submersible pumps. This thing comes with, of course, a 110v system which includes a 396 gpm submersible pump and a timer. The water apparently needs to circulate 15 minuets per hour 24/7...no kidding, I guess the plants will die quite quickly especially if it's hot.

I have done a little research on just purchasing a kit and found this. You can see the solar kit by paging down at the linked site. http://towergardener.com/
The products in this kit seem a little non robust and probably not American made which I find not desirable. Also there is not enough capacity to keep the water circulating should the sun not shine for a few days according to my rough estimates.

I would like some help in specifying good quality equipment sized for worst case, 3 days no sun. For you guys involved in ponds or hydroponics this is probably a breeze but I am out of my league with dc and small scale stuff, so please give a guy a little guidance. Thanks-Jeff

mike95490 · September 2013

Re: intermittent water pupming

Ah, the issues with solar. For the hours when the sun does not shine!

It will be hard to save a seasons worth of electricity ($5) with a solar kit to accomplish the same thing. Battery, charge controller, PV panel(s) you are looking at $300 to start with. No timer, inverter or pump yet.

Hard to beat the kit #2 they are selling.

rydmohr · September 2013

Re: intermittent water pupming

mike95490 wrote: »

Ah, the issues with solar. For the hours when the sun does not shine!

It will be hard to save a seasons worth of electricity ($5) with a solar kit to accomplish the same thing. Battery, charge controller, PV panel(s) you are looking at $300 to start with. No timer, inverter or pump yet.

Hard to beat the kit #2 they are selling.

Am I in the wrong forum? Only one response! I understand the kit would be hard to beat, price wise, but I am more interested in quality and reliabilty and using American products.

$5.00? lol You don't live in cal me thinks. After testing with a KiloWatt meter we determined the cost at around $60/year. PGE has a tiered system with time of use and although the best we can hope for is to break even, it is an interesting little project.

Thanks for responding.

mike95490 · September 2013

Re: intermittent water pupming

rydmohr wrote: »

$5.00? lol You don't live in cal me thinks. After testing with a KiloWatt meter we determined the cost at around $60/year. PGE has a tiered system with time of use and although the best we can hope for is to break even, it is an interesting little project.

Thanks for responding.

I had no idea what the water pump consumed, I'd guessed at about 30 watts.
Just for sheer saving $$, best to bootleg a plug in grid tie inverter with a 100w PV panel. And hope the thing does not burn your house down, the plug-in inverters have had no safety testing, and usually fail before burning up.

I've not had a PG&E bill for a year, but it would be cheaper than Panels, charger, pole mount, inverter, batteries.......

intermittent water pumping

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