whiterock91 - 2/5/2024 07:45

I have put a system together to drain a system. About 4 acre grid that power was a little over a quarter mile away. I asked the customer if we could use his system to do some experimenting, and he graciously accepted. We used panels and controllers from Amazon and Ebay. We put 1 12v marine deep cycle battery in the system as a buffer between the panel and the pump. The issue with that is, good 12v pumps are very hard to find. We tried a couple different pumps and ended up with a bilge pump finally. That has been working very well. To the guys that say solar doesn't work because the pump needs to be running at night and while its raining, I haven't seen ill effects from what we are doing. If the system is pumped down before the rain comes, it seems that there is enough capacity in the soil to prevent ponding. If there is a problem with ponding, it would seem like that is more of a soil hydraulic conductivity issue than an issue with the tile actually being backed up so much that water is ponding.

We learned a lot in our research for a DIY solar lift station, and the next one we do will be slightly different. We had about $1,200 in parts until it was all said and done. including a couple failed pumps.