Automation and control of pumps located at a large distance from the water tank

Automation and control of pumps located at a large distance from the water tank

Author: Sorin MORANCEA, Melior Electroinstal SRL Hunedoara, moranceas@yahoo.com


A water supplying system is generally consisting in a collector (located near user) and one or more pumps located near the water source (wells, lakes, etc.). Water is being pumped by these pumps through the piping system and sent towards the collector. Most of the times, pumps are located at an adequate distance which doesn?€™t allow to be connected with a control cable to the collector. This fact makes impossible their control by traditional method. And thus the necessity of pumps being controlled by radio waves or more recently, by GSM, had arisen.
The level sensor is calculating the level from the collector and transmits it through the control cables to the control box. Here, the signal is being transmitted by GSM to the control board, activating the pump. This control board includes the safety equipment, climate-proof equipment, as well as the control equipment for starting pumps functioning. The communication equipment makes possible for the control board and the supplying board necessary for the functioning of the pump to stay in touch permanently. The scheme was conceived in such a way as to allow some manual, local or remote controls.
The GSM communication system is made by Siemens and consists of: communication modem, adjustable automat, the energy supply source and the magnetic aerial. This communication system is functioning by GPRS method. This system of transferring data files (GPRS) is a relatively new method added to GSM service which allow for the information being transmitted and received through a mobile-phone network. The maximum speed up to 171.2kbps are obtained using 8 access ways in the same time, thing which makes GPRS being three times higher than the transmission speed through nowadays communication networks and ten times higher than the rapid data transfer (CDS) through GSM networks. Speed is one of the main advantages of the GPRS as compared to CDS. High speed and instant connection is a very important feature for crucial applications.
Some economical calculations can be made in order to check the amount of energy saved through this automation.