Cycle Stop Valves to replace 50 Aquavar VFD's in Georgia

[Tom101]

There is a well field in Georgia that has 50 wells scattered throughout the area.  They have been using Goulds Aquavar variable speed drives to control these pumps for about 2 years.  At low flow rates the VFD continually ramps the pumps up and down.  This is causing motors, pumps. and the Aquavars themselves to fail.  They have been moving the Aquavars that are still working from wells with bad pumps to wells with pumps that are still good.   Can they use a Cycle Stop Valve to replace these Aquavars?  If so then how do they set up Cycle Stop Valves to control 50 different wells?

[Cary Austin]

Here are a few pictures.  VFD Before. Across the Line Starter and CSV After.

[Larry Tidwell]

I was invited to the meeting between the well driller and the Sea island executives concerning the problems they had with the VFD's. After meeting them they pulled out a list of all the wells. On the list were 31 wells. They began to go down the list and tell me where each system was and what problems they were having with each. After showing me 26 such systems with vfd"s we came to the bottom of the list and there was 5 systems with Cycle Stop Valves. When I asked where were these located there was a great silence and then the response of "We don't know". I quickly asked "Could that be because you haven"t had any trouble with these?" and suddenly they responded "You are right!" That was all that had to be said and the driller was given the job to begin replacing the vfd"s as soon as possible with Cycle Stop Valves.  The driller not only got the pump repair but he also received the well drilling. It seems that the last well driller had a fast talking salesman to convince him he could make a lot more money selling vfd"s but I don't think he is so happy after losing an account worth over a million dollars per year.