Using a LED light on a Well Pump (glowing)

[chopped]

Hi there. I have a question I have no answer to.
Here is the situation.
Deep well pump 240 volts. Its fed from a breaker and then through a double pole switch, and then of cource through the pressure switch. A year or so ago I had some issues with the pittless, and after that I wanted to have an indicator light for when the pump was actually pumping and powered.
So I added a wire onto one 'leg' of the switch and up to an outlet,where I placed a night light...
This worked great and I could see when the pump was powered.
I them scaled back and got an LED night light bulb and that also performed well.But found and odd occurance reciently, as the pump was in 'off' mode and there was a slight glow to the base of the LED bulb.At first I thought maybe there was voltage trough it , but upon shutting off the switch it still glowed, and then with switch and breaker off it still glowed.
Now I remember once when I had the power in the house go out and it seemed like the LED night lights continued to work.....Even then I wondered if the house was getting a low amount of voltage.( just enough to run the night light but not run anything else)
So I question why I observe this? thanks for any ideas ..

 

[mikehaugen]

Maybe your check valves are bad, water is flowing back through the pump after it shuts off and generating enough to power the light?

Put a volt meter on the leads and see what you got. Let it sit as long as you can without the pump running and see if the light goes out.

 

[Redneck in training]

I have one of the first LED that were sold several years ago installed in a hallway of our house. They also glow when switched off. My guess is that the current going through the inlumination of the switch is enough to make them glow.

In your case there might be a power induced to the cable to the pump. Your cable to the pump is not shielded (like instrument cables are). If you have two conductors in parallel they work like a transformer. In example there is AC current flowing trough the ground and it is induced to the cable. Since the LED needs only very small current to glow the power induced in the cable is enough to do it so.

 

[bandaidmd]

you need to confirm if its voltage making it light or it possibly has a small battery in the nightlight.

 

[Redneck in training]

Brigtness of the LED is proportional to the current. Therefore the LED controllers, are in essence, current regulators or current limiters. Night lite has current limiter. If the voltage is low the current limiter passes maximum current available. Since the current is low (due to low voltage) the LED glows only. My guess is there is just few volts acros the light. Here is an experimet you can do if you have a digital voltmenter. Switch it to AC V and conect the leads together. It will register small voltage induced by electromagnetic field in example from radio transmitter. There are all kinds of currents flowing trough the ground that can induce enough voltage to the cable to make the LED light glow.

 

[k0ua]

Brigtness of the LED is proportional to the current. Therefore the LED controllers, are in essence, current regulators or current limiters. Night lite has current limiter. If the voltage is low the current limiter passes maximum current available. Since the current is low (due to low voltage) the LED glows only. My guess is there is just few volts acros the light. Here is an experimet you can do if you have a digital voltmenter. Switch it to AC V and conect the leads together. It will register small voltage induced by electromagnetic field in example from radio transmitter. There are all kinds of currents flowing trough the ground that can induce enough voltage to the cable to make the LED light glow.

Exactlly. as well as Low Frequency RF. It doesn't take a whole lot of energy to light an LED when you stick a large "antenna" on it.

I used to light a 2 foot Florescent tube by attaching it to my wire antenna running out in the back yard. It would easily glow to full brilliance with only one lead attached to it by the electricity generated by the wire being exposed to to the wind in certain conditions. Snow coming down was one of the best of those conditions.

James K0UA

 

[SPIKER]

I would like to ad that there could be some stray voltage on the neutral wire out at the pump that is using the well water as a better ground to make the glow.

Lots of possibilities using the meter on the leads may actually pull off enough of the open switched power to kill the glow of the LED. I would be interested in seeing what you find out too...

Mark

 

[Xfaxman]

Hi there. I have a question I have no answer to.
Here is the situation.
Deep well pump 240 volts. Its fed from a breaker and then through a double pole switch, and then of cource through the pressure switch. A year or so ago I had some issues with the pittless, and after that I wanted to have an indicator light for when the pump was actually pumping and powered.
So I added a wire onto one 'leg' of the switch and up to an outlet,where I placed a night light...
This worked great and I could see when the pump was powered.
I them scaled back and got an LED night light bulb and that also performed well.But found and odd occurance reciently, as the pump was in 'off' mode and there was a slight glow to the base of the LED bulb.At first I thought maybe there was voltage trough it , but upon shutting off the switch it still glowed, and then with switch and breaker off it still glowed.
Now I remember once when I had the power in the house go out and it seemed like the LED night lights continued to work.....Even then I wondered if the house was getting a low amount of voltage.( just enough to run the night light but not run anything else)
So I question why I observe this? thanks for any ideas ..

Since there is no neutral on the 240 volt pump circuit, did you use use neutral and ground at the outlet for the night light?

 

[arlen4720]

Brigtness of the LED is proportional to the current. Therefore the LED controllers, are in essence, current regulators or current limiters. Night lite has current limiter. If the voltage is low the current limiter passes maximum current available. Since the current is low (due to low voltage) the LED glows only. My guess is there is just few volts acros the light. Here is an experimet you can do if you have a digital voltmenter. Switch it to AC V and conect the leads together. It will register small voltage induced by electromagnetic field in example from radio transmitter. There are all kinds of currents flowing trough the ground that can induce enough voltage to the cable to make the LED light glow.

I would also add that LED cicuits are particularly vunerable to such induced currents by virtue of their low operating current and the fact that they are diodes and rectify currents that would normally cancel.
It would be nice if the OP drew up a nice little schematic of his complete circuit. It would be easy to tell what's going on then....Electricity always behaves on paper.

 

[bandaidmd]

I guess hes gone?

In post 1 he said wired to switch, strange that he didn't say pressure switch cause that's the only way a indicator light would be of any benefit.

 

[chopped]

Sorry for the delay in reply.I had the oil tank decide to start leaking and have been 'bailing' the oil out of that.
To help some, the feed for the pump comes from the circuit breaker, then goes through a double pole switch.(off and on)
the wire continues to the pressure switch. and out to the pump.
Yes the 'outlet' I hooked up with the indicator light was hooked to one side of the 220 on the pressure switch..(one black to one side and the white to the incoming white from the breaker) what i've found now is that its slow to completly stop being showing light. But I also notice now that I can shut off the other full size LED bulbs and they also don't instantly stop glowing.
I haven't checked with the meter yet. and its a 3 dollar HF one lol
OH??YES the wires for the night light are hooked on the pump side of the pressure switch.And the contacts are fully dis engaging..

 

[bandaidmd]

Is your pump wired with "real" 220 wire as in red- black -white and ground, or black- white and ground?

If its the latter that i think you described bridging the white and black is giving your indicator light 220 volts.

running between white and black is correct for a 110 but not your 220. Theres probably no "correct way" way to do this.

If someone was to have hooked one side of the nightlight to black and the other side to whatever they are using for the ground (bare?) the light would come on. I'm not advocating hooking it up like that ,just saying for the sake of discussion.

and any time you use a white wire to carry power its supposed to be marked as such ( red or black sharpie or tape works well)

 

[Xfaxman]

I wanted an indicator light for my deep well pump, a light wired on the pressure switch shows the pump should be running. The AC current switch that I used shows that the pump is running.

Found it on eBay.

The wiring diagram.


Installed in the breaker box at the well, about 50' from the house.


I now use an 11 watt Sign Light, visible from the house.


Installed it last March, the small investment is worth the peace of mind knowing all the outside faucets are off and the toilet valves and flappers aren't leaking.

 

[bandaidmd]

so it just senses the current when it starts to flow on either leg of the 220 and switches on a separate circuit?

 

[Xfaxman]

so it just senses the current when it starts to flow on either leg of the 220 and switches on a separate circuit?

It only senses the leg that runs through the hole in the switch. Normally on 220VAC, there will be current in both at the same time.

It also works for sensing 120VAC current.

The switch contacts are rated at 2.5 amp.

 

[bandaidmd]

That's what i thought we just described it a different way, didn't know they made such a device.