Laing D5 Solar 720B Ecocirc PV Direct Circulating Pump, Sweated ConnectionWrite a review

These pumps are great. As a solar thermal contractor, I
ve installed dozens of these pumps with very few issues. The people who rated these pumps poorly, like the guy who tried using this as a DB system pump, understands pump physics and hydronics poorly. A DB pump needs to be able to create 2-4 ft FPS through a collector on start up and hold that in order to entrain the air and keep it in the DB tank. Seeing as this pump is wholly dependent on it
s PV source, aka the sun, which we all know isn
t always stable it
s an incredibly poor choice for a DB pump.

Well built, dependable, and easy to install.

I have a solar water heater that is 4
x10
with 300
of 1/2
copper pipe in it. home made. It is a direct system. The heated water is pushed with this pump 70
to the 80gal. storage tank through 3/4
cpvc pipe. I use a 12V 50 watt panel I bought from here also to power this pump. All works well with a 70 percent sunny day it will make 80 gal of 120 degree water. I
m still tweaking it though. The only CON was the service. The site says call us and we
ll help you. I did call and explain what I was doing and the guy here said to me
You are building a solar water heater and you want me to tell you what you need ?
I was kinda taken back and did not appreciate the total lack of help. He told me to go read some more. So I had to figure it out on my own. Wouldn
t even point me in the right direction. [edit: name calling removed] Panel and pump work well though.



Response from AltE:

At AltE we invest a significant amount of time and resources to train our technical sales staff to be as knowledgeable as possible about the renewable energy systems and components we offer to our customers. Like most of our customers, most of our technical sales folks are Do-It-Yourselfers themselves. They are passionate about assisting other Do-It-Yourselfers in creating renewable energy systems to meet their needs with the components we offer. However, they are not trained in how to create homemade versions of the components we offer nor design systems around homemade components.

Sascha Deri
President

In my case, the D-5 wasn
t able to pump even close to the head shown in the pump curve. The motor side of the pump works fine, but the machining of the pump volute is crude. I suspect the machining of the brass casting is the problem, but without a good one to compare it with, I have no way of knowing. I sent a picture of the crudely machined pump interior to Alt-E, but they havent compared it with pumps they have in stock, so I don
t know whether all D-5 pumps are incapable of pumping promised head or whether I just have a bad one.