Need help with solar hot water heater controller

[terracore]

Unfortunately, I think without a cut off switch our system would heat the water to a level that is dangerous to the water heater. As is, I could operate the existing pump with a $5.00 appliance timer and skip the need for a $200 controller.

[terracore]

To close this out, the manufacturer put me in touch with their only distributor who offered to sell me the same model I had for $145. Free shipping. I tried negotiate the price down (black friday? coupon code? anything?) and they told me that they were the only wholesaler and that was the lowest price they had, and gave me their secret number to call them to get that price.

I looked all over the internet and that was indeed the lowest price, by a good $40 or so.

I also found the same company selling them for the exact same price on ebay. So much for their secret number.

Anyways, $145 later it looks like my solar hot water is back to normal.

There is a cheaper model that would have worked but it would have required me to hard-wire the pump into it instead of just plugging it into the receptacle, or hardwiring my own receptacle into the controller. I went for convenience.

There were newer, more expensive digital models available but I just interpret that to mean more opportunities for failure using components that haven't been field tested for many years.

[leilanidude]

Thanks - I will call them and order my replacement too. I also dislike the newer, digital ones as I do not trust the reliability. The existing one I have must be over 10 years old.

[terracore]

From your previous description it sounds like you only need to replace the sensor? Those are only like $12. Alternatively, is it possible an existing sensor just needs to be reattached?

You can also adjust the temp differential (the POT knob on the left). If it is running at night, try turning the knob to the right further. Drainpipe had our old unit set to run at about diff of 20 degrees so that is what I set our new unit at. Though on cloudy days, I can see where lowering that would produce more hot water, but also risk the pump running at night, esp if the sensor was flaky.

ETA: make more legible