Water Pump trips breaker

[Dan Gilch]

Hi all.

When flushing the antifreeze out of the stern shower faucet yesterday the water flow was not good so I removed the shower head from the hose....which helped alot.

But then the pressure shut off and the water pump breaker tripped.

I reset and after about 10 or 15 seconds it tripped again.

All the other faucets are working and not causing the breaker to trip.

Nothing looks or sounds amiss at the pump.

Appreciate any ideas on what could be the cause of this and fixes?

Thanks.

Dan

Slip Away #144

[Jeff Hare]

That’s really interesting.  …And curious. 

 

If the breaker trips, then there is an issue with the pump or wiring at the pump.  While it’s less likely, there could be a loose connection or exposed connection that shorts from pump vibration causing the breaker to trip. 

 

I have to believe that the problem is not really related to the stern faucet, but it might be a bad pump that has issues with different flow rates that cycles the pump differently.  I suspect if you try running any other faucet at the same rate that you get through the stern shower, you’d reproduce the problem.

 

I would first make sure that the connections are in good shape and not corroded.  Maybe open them up and be sure.  If they are corroded, you could be running the motor with enough of a reduced voltage to cause a stall.  Or maybe the motor has a problem that causes it to not always start quickly enough, defective pressure sensor, defective capacitor (not totally sure whether this motor controller has a capacitor or not for controlling startup or operation, being a DC Motor, some do some don’t).

 

Generally though a DC Motor stall doesn’t draw excessive current like an AC motor does.  My bet is on a bad pump motor.

 

So, what I would be doing is:

1. Remove all the aerators from the faucets and see if you can get the breaker to fail running the galley faucet at different rates for a while.
2. Checking the actual wiring connections at the pump for quality connections. 
3. Use a volt meter on the pump side of the connectors while it is running and see what voltage the pump is actually seeing while running.  Better would be to use a clamp on ammeter to see what amount of current the pump is drawing.  If it’s drawing more than 12A or whatever your pump is rated to draw, then this points to the pump
4. Put in a new pump if you don’t find any problem with the connections.  
5. While there is some chance of a bad circuit breaker at the panel, that is usually not the problem.

 

Best I got at this point…

Good luck!

-Jeff Hare

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[Dan Gilch]

Thanks for the tips Jeff....I will investigate further and update.

Dan