electric circuit float valve

[hobogato]

anyone know if there is anyone in san antonio that carries these float valves or something equivalent.

or, does anyone have 2 of them that you would sell me?

http://www.floatswitches.net/floatswitch.html

[witecap4u]

What you are looking for is a float SWITCH. You can try granger, I think they have some for like $15. I believe Samiam posted a link to it a very long time ago. You might try pm'ing him.

T/

cs

[hammondegge]

yep, grainger has them. ~$18 for 30amp and ~$35 for 60amp

[pilot_bell777]

DO NOT BUY THESE!!!!!

I bought three of them, two blew up the first time I hooked them up (lower than rated amps/volts), one continued to work. I got the two replaced, thought they were all working and within two days of hooking them up on my tank........left for work came home to a flood and a burned up pump.


Tee Are Ohh You Bee Ele Eee

If you are looking for an autotop off system and have a sump you can go to a boat supply store and get a real float swith for a marine bildge and just turn it upside down. If you turn them over you can do the opposite which is what you want. Wouldn't be too pretty in the display tank though.

[bprewit]

the float switches at Grainger are rated high enough for a auto top off pump like a powerhead. The small float switches in the link are rated for .6 amps which is pretty low. Small pumps pull a small amount of current when running but can pull up to three times the current at startup so it tends to destroy the small low current float switches. I have been running two of the float switches from that link for over two years. I wired my pump to a 8pin relay that is rated for 25amps and only use the float switch to operate the coil of the relay which is a very small amount of current.
Pumps at work pull up to 600% of nameplate current on startup. With a 500 hp 480V \ 560A motor it will surely dim the lights on startup!

[jroescher]

I'm always reading where electric float switches burn up quickly or fail for so many people. Maybe this is why?? A lot of the float switchs have a reed switch inside them.

http://www.gemssensors.com/ReedSwitch.htm

If you do a google search for Reed Switch Protection, you'll find a lot about protecting against inductive loads.

In all honesty though, I don't have a clue about this stuff.

[witecap4u]

Just put your top off system on a timer, and you shouldnt have to worry about over filling if a switch fails.

cs

[bprewit]

you could also use two float switches in series, one NO and the other NC. NO switch would kick on a pump or other device if the level became too low and if for some reason it welded shut the NC switch could open on a "too high" level preventing it from overflowing your tank or sump.