Five-acre farm.

Owned by Nancy and Bhir.

Bought the land in 2018.

Grow okra, armenian cucumbers, black-eyed peas, etc.

Distribute the produce directly to friends and family.

Objective: Run the pump off-grid, with PV and batteries. Optionally run other loads thru a sub-panel.

In 2019, installed a 240-volt 5-horsepower (3.7 kW) submersible pump. 264' deep.

It's a three-wire pump, with a control box above it.

control box

make: goulds (subsidiary of xylem)

model: centri-pro CB50412MC

From the spec sheet:

normal amps: 24

service factor: 1.15

lra: 101

Measured by mike:

normal amps: 26

max amps: 52.5

in-rush amps: overload (using a klein multi-meter that measures up to 600 amps)

mike doesn't understand why 'overload' when the spec-sheet lra is 101.

Inside the control box:

Here's the control box and the pressure tank:

In the first few years, they ran the pump with a Pulsar 12kW-peak generator (webpage)

In later years, they've been running the pump with the neighbor's grid power (the neigbor is family).

The generator isn't two-wire start, but mike will consider modifying it to be controlled by the inverter. It's in decent condition.

mike plans to install a soft starter. And then re-measure in-rush current... hopefully getting a reading.

per chat-gpt recommendation, mike bought the eltwin sure-start 16-32amp (SS1B16-32SN) soft starter.

but Bob Cramer at mes-group distributor is working with their engineering team, to confirm its compatibility or to recommend a different soft starter that's made specifically for pumps.

at the same time that mike installs the soft starter, he'll install an energy monitor (probably a shelly em with 120-amp ct clamp (for one leg)).

mike anticipates using midnite or victron inverter(s).

bi-facial pv modules.

mike anticipates building a wooden ground-mount rack similar to in this you-tube video.

but will do a price comparison with an aluminum rack. his front-runner is snap-n-rack's.

ideally, there will be rain-free storage space under the ground mount.