Calpeda e-idos Pumps with Integrated Pressure Control

Calpeda groups e-idos as its line of pumps with integrated electronics, and every model in it does the same job: hold pressure in a small clean-water system and start and stop itself as the draw-off changes. There are four builds. MÈTA is a self-priming unit with a frequency converter and a pressure vessel already on board. E-MXP is a horizontal multistage pump. E-NGX is self-priming. E-MPS is a 5-inch submersible multistage pump for a well, tank or reservoir.

These are the figures for a single pump, from Calpeda's 50 Hz catalogue data sheets. Head is quoted as the tabulated band, from the figure at maximum flow up to the closed-valve figure.

Two figures in that table are not the same quantity, so keep them apart. Calpeda rates the E-MXP, E-NGX and E-MPS on P2, the rated motor power output, which runs from 0.45 to 1.1 kW. It rates MÈTA on P1, the maximum power input, at 0.65 kW for MÈTA SMALL-2 and 1 kW for MÈTA-2. Comparing a P1 against a P2 will make the MÈTA look larger than it is.

Picking between them is mostly about where the water is. If the pump sits above the water and has to pull, take a self-priming build: MÈTA or E-NGX. If it is fed under positive suction head and you want head out of a small footprint, take E-MXP. If the source is a borehole, tank or reservoir, take E-MPS and drop it in. Calpeda needs a well of at least 140 mm internal diameter for it, a minimum immersion of 100 mm and no more than 20 m of immersion depth.

Check what Calpeda rates these for before you get as far as the curve. The whole range is for clean liquids that are non-explosive and non-flammable, not hazardous to health or the environment, non-aggressive to the pump materials, and free of abrasives and of solid or fibrous particles. Liquid temperature runs 0°C to +35°C, and 0°C to +50°C on E-MXP. Maximum permissible pressure in the pump casing is 8 bar on all four. Calpeda's improper-use wording is blunt about one case in particular. Do not use these in ponds, tanks or swimming pools, or anywhere people may enter or come into contact with the water.

This is Calpeda at the small end of pressure boosting, and that is where it should stay. A pair of e-idos pumps tops out at 14 m³/h. Above that, or where the job wants duty and standby with a third pump in reserve and a controller that logs and alarms, you are looking at a conventional packaged set instead, and we would rather point you at one than stretch this family to cover it.

A transducer on the pump reads delivery pressure and the electronics start and stop the motor against two set points you enter: UP01, the stop pressure, and UP02, the restart pressure. A non-return valve is built into the suction. Because the pump holds its own pressure, Calpeda's position is that e-idos reduces or removes the need for a separate expansion vessel, and MÈTA already carries one.

Comfort and Eco

Parameter UP03 chooses between two operating modes. Comfort is the default and lengthens the running time to hold pressure steady and cut the number of starts. Eco shortens the run to save energy. That saving has a price: in Eco mode Calpeda advises fitting an accumulator of at least 8 litres on the delivery side, because the pump is now cycling harder. Maximum starts per hour are 120 on E-MXP, E-NGX and E-MPS, and 90 on MÈTA. The display warns once the pump reaches 15 starts in a short cycle, and logs Er05 above 240 starts in two hours. If a pump sits in stand-by for more than 24 hours it runs a forced start to stop it seizing.

Dry-run handling

Dry-run protection retries before it locks the pump out. On the default setting the pump raises Er01, then retries for 10 seconds every 10 minutes, up to six times, and stops for a manual reset after that. The alternative setting keeps trying every 24 hours for 15 seconds with no limit on attempts, which suits a source that recovers on its own. Neither setting makes dry running safe. Fill the pump completely before starting it, and where the pump is above the water level, or the positive suction head is under 1 m, fill it through the priming hole.

Running two or three as a group

On E-MXP and E-NGX, booster-set mode is parameter GP01. Set it on each pump, then set the number of pumps in the group (GP02, two or three), the set stop pressure (GP03), the set restart pressure (GP04), a unique ID per pump (GP05) and a changeover threshold time between 1 and 24 hours (GP06) that rotates the lead pump. GP02, GP03, GP04 and GP06 must be identical on every pump. Power the group down and back up, and each display shows its own stop and restart pressures, derived and locked.

MÈTA does it over Bluetooth. GP01 selects random starts or cyclic pump operation, GP02 gives the group an ID between 0 and 255, GP03 names one pump master and the others slave, and GP04 sets the number of pumps at two or three. If the Bluetooth link drops, the pumps fall back to random start-up and resume cyclic operation when it comes back.

The factory-built sets

Calpeda supplies e-idos pumps already made up in pairs. The figures below are set figures, not single-pump figures. The flow doubles at the same head, because two identical pumps run in parallel.

Both take a connection for one G 1" pressure vessel. The MÈTA sets are G 2 on the suction manifold and G 1 1/2 on the delivery. The wider principle is the same one behind any packaged set, and how a cold-water booster set works covers it in full.

Motors and standards

All four builds are single-phase 2-pole induction motors: 230 V ±10% at 50 Hz on E-MXP, E-NGX and E-MPS, and 220–240 V at 50 Hz or 220 V at 60 Hz on MÈTA. Insulation is class F. Protection is IP X4 on the surface pumps and IP X8 on E-MPS for continuous immersion. Single-phase motors on E-MXP and E-NGX are IE2 efficiency class. Motors on MÈTA, E-MXP and E-NGX are constructed in accordance with EN 60034-1, EN 60335-1 and EN 60335-2-41, and the E-MPS motor is built to EN 60335-2-41. Published performance across the range carries tolerances to UNI EN ISO 9906:2012, tested on clean cold water without gas content. For a swimming pool with nobody in it, a garden pond or a similar place, Calpeda requires a type A residual current device with a residual current no greater than 30 mA in the supply circuit.