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Deleting Fresh Water Tank and Feeding Cat Pumps Directly

bigleo48

bigleo48

Active member
All,

Over the years I have tried various ways to 'up' the reliability of the replenishing equipment for the fresh water tank. So far I have replaced the bob valves, tried hydrominders, installed trap filters and reduced the incoming water pressure from 85 to 60lbs.

The bob valves aren't reliable and I often find them overflowing. The hydrominders work, but on rare occasions don't 'click on' or off and so the tank runs dry, thus shutting down the HP pumps or overflowing. I have used different amounts of weight to fine tune when it 'clicks on' and they seem ok for now.

The pros of the the fresh water tank is that they remove the air bubbles and removes the pressure to the inlet side of the Cat pumps and also house the very important low water shut off switches.

The Cons is that they can overflow or run dry and they cool incoming warm water.

Have any of you tried a configuration that removes this tank? My cat pumps can handle up to 60lbs on the inlet, water here is very reliable (never had an outage), but I would still need low/no water shut off capability.

Any ideas?
 
If you put a solenoid valve at the entrance to the platform's water supply (both hot and cold if that's what you have) you'll solve the problem of the Robert's valve and the overflowing and is simple to do. That will solve the over-flow problem as it takes the pressure off of the float valve and only activates when a pump is turned on.
 
Kevin & Bighead

Thanks for that...both are good ideas. Adding a solonoid kinda complicates it more, but my IBA is set up like that and has been reliable.

BigHead...why is the Jobe any better and was it the Topaz model? Where did you buy yours?
 
I have a booster pump setup for my water supply and the Jobe is the only one that has lasted with the pressure ebb and flow. I went through 3 or 4 different brand before I settled with the Jobe and I haven't had to replace it, or touch it for that matter, and it been about 2 years.

www.kencove.com is where I bought mine. Its a Farm Supply website.

Yeah, its the topaz model
 
Etowah
I replaced individual float tanks at a wash with zero-pressure regulators for each pump. There was already a dual solenoid in place for hot and cold, and to make the regulator work properly I only had to plumb the bypass from the regulator back in before the inlet regulator. It worked beautifully, but they're somewhat high maintenance - when they'd wear out the pump would receive full city pressure and there would be no soap or wax. On the plus side, the pumps never ran without water, and a very quick temporary fix was to throttle back the hot supply to let the pump draw chemical. Each regulator would have to be rebuilt about once a year - at one wash the attendant would cheat and replace just the cartridge, but I was never able to order just that part. The cartridge itself would erode and the o-ring that controlled the flow would just fall off.

I've wanted to try using a Dosatron or similar pump to actually supply soap and wax at city pressure to the pumps, but I really don't want to spend $300 just to see if it will work. The last time I mentioned it here, someone PM'ed me and said to e-mail him on how to make it work, but I figure if someone wants to be that way about sharing info, then I don't want it from them.
 
I tried a topaz a couple years ago, had a lot of problems with it. Took it out after about a month and went back to the walters.
 
There is a product called a zero pressure regulator, that Windtrax sells. The part# is real close to PR100A-A4. This is plimbed in on the inlet side of the pump. This drops the pressure to zero at the inlet side of the pump, so soap and wax can be drawn in when using city water pressure. If you are currently using separate solenoids for hot and cold water, I would say this would be the way to go. You can simply run a street T off of the pr1000, and then a check valve, and then inlet of your choice for soap and wax. HTH
 
whitescout said:
You can simply run a street T off of the pr1000, and then a check valve, and then inlet of your choice for soap and wax.
Click to expand...
That's the same one I used, and you don't need a check valve. It has two 1/4" NPT ports for soap and wax which are checked internally in case the regulator goes bad.
 
0 pressure set up

I saw on the Windtrax site that there is a weep and non-weep. Is the weep needed and is this what is being refered to as bypass that is going back into the intake side.
 
hoyeman said:
I saw on the Windtrax site that there is a weep and non-weep. Is the weep needed and is this what is being refered to as bypass that is going back into the intake side.
Click to expand...

The weep version has nothing to do with bypass, at least not the way mine is plumbed.

a have a hot solenoid and and cold, each with check valves and a T
Next another T with a needle valve and a check valve in the weep line.

all that goes to the inlet of the PR1000A. this way, weeping passes through more than just the bay gun.
there is a T on the chemical port of the PR1000A, check valves, and solenoids for soap and wax. If I had presoak it would go in there too.

The outlet side of the PR1000 is the inlet to the CAT 5CP2120W.

the bypass is completely different, it goes from the unloader to the inlet on the other end of the CAT, so that when someone releases the gun and the unloader dumps, it dumps back into the pump.
 
I always used the weep model, and the only thing I noticed is that when a solenoid failed to close, water would weep from the gun. I don't know what the difference is, but perhaps the non-weep will stop the pressure into the pump if you have a weep gun and don't use a solenoid for the supply. Since it's a zero-pressure regulator, a non-weep may keep the supply to the pump at zero PSI even if the pump is off, which I know the weep model won't do.

I replumbed the two washes with these regulators to eliminate maintenance problems, and to keep it as simple as possible I used no check valves, however there were high-pressure check valves on the outlet of the pumps because spot-free rinse would work its way through the pump and overfill the float tanks.
 
You can use the non weep on a weep system. The non weep PR1000 has a heavy duty spring in it, as as far as I know, this is the only difference between the 2.

As far as the bypass question, this is totally different from anything to do with bypass. It is called a zero pressure regulator, because it drops the inlet side pressure from city water pressure to 0 to allow soap and wax to be sucked in. If you did not use this device, it would be very difficult to suck in soap or wax with city water pressure as opposed to a gravity fed system. The PR1000 is plumbed inline with water supply, and the inlet of your pump.

I reccomend using a BR5-2 regulator for a regulator with this system. It can help with any pulsation that can occur from running pumps at a lower speed, instead of having to spend $$$$$ on a pulsation dampner.

The one thing that the PR1000s do not like, is HOT!!!! water. The diaphram can fail early, or the unit can vapor lock. By HOT!!!! water, I mean over 140 degrees. ( Unless you have installed high temp seals, your pump will not like it either. ;)
 
I'm not sure what the "bypass question" is, but when I first installed some of these, the regulator's bypass was on the opposite side of the pump, and the zero-pressure regulator couldn't recover quickly enough from the change in flow whenever the trigger was pulled, making the pump cavitate for an instant each time. My solution was to move the bypass return before the zero-pressure regulator, which meant the flow of water through it was always the same. It also greatly reduced pump maintenance, but I'm not sure if that was from the less-agitated flow of water through the pump or the elimination of the small float tanks which aerated the water. Whichever it was, the overall maintenance was a lot less.
 
The bypass question was based on confusion. The 0 pressure regulator was being mentioned just before the mention on the bypass on the regulator. At first I thought that you were talking about the same regulator, the 0 pressure, and that it had some type of bypass(Never used one and never seen one). Confusion cleared up. Thanks
 
Paul, I just purchased a Jobe valve from Carwashsuperstore ($50) and it was a Topaz. So this valve is the one you said was crappy? If so what made it bad? Thanks

2423137357_f7b4d69022.jpg
 
I think thats the one I had, although the float was different ... so maybe not exactly. The problem I had was that the tank overflowed once or twice a week -- valve just didnt always close completely. Maybe I just got a bad one, maybe there's a hot water version and I got a cold (I use hot water), I dont know. If you already paid for it I'd try it, just keep an eye on it. :)
 
Paul, there is a difference between the hot water & cold water valve. I have been using Jobe valves for about a year without a failure on the cold water. Tried one on the hot water & it failed closed after a couple of weeks. They have come out with a new hot water valve but I have not tried one yet.
 
I've been using 1" Walters (Watermaster) valves at our wash for nearly five years - in that time I've replaced two diaphragms and two whole float valves in the self-serve tank, one in the hot tank on the auto. The cold one is still original, and none of them have ever hung wide open or closed. The worst that's ever happened is a slight trickle that slowly overflows the tank if the wash is empty.
 
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