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US 10,241,524 B2Granted
Pump controller system and method
AssigneePentair Water Pool and Spa, Inc.
InventorRobert M. Koehl
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for a pump control system. One or more embodiments of the invention include a pump controller that can perform a self-calibrating procedure, can provide precise motor speed control, can provide a limp mode before shutting down the motor when system parameters are exceeded and/or fault conditions occur, can detect fault conditions, and can store fault conditions for later retrieval.
Claims19
A method of detecting a fault condition in a pool or spa, the pool or spa being coupled to a pump and a motor, the method comprising:
- supplying a single-phase input to a controller from an AC bus;
- measuring a voltage and a current being provided to the controller;
- correcting a power factor based on the voltage and the current;
- coupling a temperature sensor to a heatsink of at least one of the motor and the controller;
- measuring a DC current on a DC bus to power inverter drives of the motor;
- generating a variable frequency three-phase output from the inverter drives to the motor;
- analyzing whether fault conditions have occurred based on (a) the DC current having a value less than a pre-set threshold indicative of a foreign object obstruction to the pump and (b) a temperature of the heatsink measured by the temperature sensor;
- and
- shutting down the motor when at least one of the fault conditions have occurred.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.