What's Your Power Factor....Does it matter in a residential application

[mobile_bob]

Tom:

if it were me, i would not place the capacitor up by the house
i would place it as close to the pump as is practical.

the reason being
the reactive current basically circulates to and fro from the load to the source
the capacitor provides for this reactive current, so
you want the capacitor as close to the load as possible so that there is a minimum of wire
for the reactive current to go "back and forth" to.

if you put it up by the house, all that extra wire must carry not only the real power, but also the reactive current
as well, so basically you don't get the benefit you are after.

bob g

[Tom Reed]

Wow, sounds like a deep and potentially expensive endeavor. I have found an item 24-UMSRE30 that has lugs for start and run capacitors. Thanks for the missive Bob and the warnings! Looks like I'll need to do some studying before frying my pump or inverter.

[mobile_bob]

i would strongly suggest any power factor correction experimentation be done with power from the mains
and not from an inverter.

motors are pretty tough, at least much tougher to kill from voltage increasing above nominal than are inverters.

most inverters are not protected from increased voltage seen on their outputs, because it shouldn't be there.

bob g

[Tom Reed]

Since I'm off grid, the choice is st5 or outback inverter.