Extending your Pump Wire – Wire Choice and Splicing

Your pump comes with 6’ of pump cable attached. You’ll need to splice additional pump wire according to how deep you're placing the pump down your well, or how far out you place your pump in a pond. Using the correct pump wire will depend on your system. The RPS 200-800 (narrow and volume pumps included), Transfer and Fountain pumps all use 3-strand (2+G) submersible cable and the Pro systems use 4-strand (3+G) cable. The distance between pump and controller will determine the wire gauge required, and typically a larger wire diameter will mitigate potential voltage drop. A good rule of thumb:

For wire distances up to 200ft - use 12-gauge, 3-strand wire
For wire distances longer than 200ft - recommended to use 10-gauge, 3-strand wire 

Use the provided splice kit with adhesive-lined heat-shrink tubing to connect your pump cable extension. Your pump comes with butt-crimps pre-attached to the pump cable. The splice kit also includes 3 larger butt-crimps to splice 10 gauge wire if needed. When using a heat gun or butane lighter to shrink the tubing, ensure you see a little of the adhesive out the ends of the tube. This ensures you'll have a water-tight seal. NOTE: Be careful not to melt the wire insulation or overheat the tubing.

For systems using the 100v controller, use the above table included in your user manual to keep track of pump wire color. You can also note this down somewhere you won't lose the info; inside the controller lid as an example. This ensures you connect the pump wire to the proper controller terminal and will make your life a lot easier down the road!

Do I need to connect all three submersible pump wires 1, 2 and 3? (Labeled U, V, W on pre-2018 100v controllers)
Yes. These are 3-phase brushless DC motors so each wire is needed as a phase (no ground wire).

Here's a video tutorial on how to splice your pump wires: