New Pump Sales - Questions for Customer

This guide will help you determine whether your pump system is compatible with the Altrac pump control unit and what Altrac products you may need to purchase in order to have a fully functioning system. 

Warning: Gathering the information requested in this article is VERY DANGEROUS. This article is meant as a guideline for skilled electricians to supply Altrac with the data it needs to assess what system to send to the ultimate customer of the product. 

If you are not a skilled electrician or are in any way uncomfortable with gathering the below information, do not do it. An electrician should be able gather all information below quickly and easily. 

General Note 1: Our goal is to send you all the parts and information you need in order to install the Altrac pump control unit in one attempt. We understand it is costly and annoying to have an electrician to your property more than once. To further this goal, the more pictures and data you can provide us, the more likely we will be able to achieve this.

General Note 2: Altrac pump control devices are powered by 110VAC outlets. You will need a 110VAC outlet nearby in order to power our device. It is especially important to check for this, as some 480VAC pump installations do not have 110VAC power readily available.

Determine the type of pump you have

The Altrac pump control unit controls the following pump setups:

• Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) or Soft Start Pumps, also know generally as "Inverters"
• Contactor / Relay Driven Pumps

Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) or Soft Start Inverter Driven Pumps

The easiest way to determine if you've got a VFD or Soft Start driven pump is whether you have some sort of LCD display or keypad on your pump. The keypad and LCD would be on the front of the pump panel, and would allow you to change settings like target PSI and ramp up / down time. Some typical control setups are:

If you want to make sure you've got a VFD or soft start, you can also open your pump panel. Inside the pump panel you should find a white / grey / black box that may have words like "Soft-Start", "Variable Speed", "Inverter", "Smart Drive" or other nomenclature that denotes you are using something other than a relay or contactor. The box may look like one of the following:

If you've determined you have a soft-start or VFD, please skip to the section "Inverters: Assessing Compatibility". Otherwise look to the next section for contactor / relay driven pumps.

Contactor / Relay Driven Pumps

A contactor or relay driven pump will have little to no digital controls on the outside of the pump panel.   Typically with these, you will turn a switch and then press a button to start them. Below is an example of a pump panel with no external digital controls, just buttons and switches:

This setup will also have little to know controls inside the Below is an example of two different contactor setups. The setup on the left is old and the setup on the right is newer (but still 10+ years old):

If you've determined you have a contactor or relay driven pump, please skip to the section "Contactors: Assessing Compatibility". If you aren't sure what you have, please call us at [phone].

Inverters: Assessing Compatibility

If you've determined you have a inverter controlling your pump, you can help out our sales representative by doing the following:

1) Take a picture of the full panel and setup

2) Take a picture of the placard showing the model number and serial number for the inverter

Good Pictures:

Bad Pictures:

3) Take a picture of the control terminals

We are looking to understand if there are free terminals for our device to connect to, so please make sure to take good pictures of these, as it can possibly save you $150+.

Good Pictures:

Bad Pictures:

4) Take pictures of your control switches and buttons

It's important to get a good pictures of the stackable switches, as your electrician will need to buy these and bring them out when doing the installation.

5) Take pictures of any other sensors, controls you would like to determine if we can control or monitor

We can monitor other sensors, such as pressure sensors and some flow meters. 

We also want to know about any other controls, like time delay relays.

6) Assemble these pictures and send them us

You can email them to [e-mail] or you can submit them to this request form: https://altrac.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Contactors: Assessing Compatibility

Contactors and relay driven pumps are typically older and less standardized than inverter driven pumps (for examples, they don't have manuals). They can be tricky to setup correctly, so some of the burden of installing them correctly will be up to the electrician you hire. 

1) Take a picture of the full pump panel

2) Take a picture of the Contactor or Relay

This is the most critical part, as we need to determine what the voltage of the coil on the contactor is in order to properly determine if our control device can switch the coil or if you will need a relay in between. 

Sometimes it can help us if you also take a picture of any installed transformers:

3) Take a picture of the internal schematic, if available

These are typically stickered to the inside of the door, however they are not always available or legible.

4) Take a picture of your motor control leads with a tape measure

We need to know the diameter of the control lead in order to fit a current switch or current transducer. These can be between 1/2" and 1" wide. 

When installed, the current switch will look like the following:

4) Take pictures of your control switches and buttons

It's important to get a good pictures of the stackable switches, as your electrician will need to buy these and bring them out when doing the installation.

5) Take pictures of any other sensors, controls you would like to determine if we can control or monitor

We can monitor other sensors, such as pressure sensors and some flow meters. 

We also want to know about any other controls, like time delay relays.

6) Assemble these pictures and send them us

You can email them to [e-mail] or you can submit them to this request form: https://altrac.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new