I am about to fill my flat solar panels. Instructions from the manufacturers say "attach our panel filling pump". They then want £750 for the said pump! Not wanting to do this I am looking for an alternative method. At present I am looking at making my own pump set up but would welcome ideas from anyone who has already done this. Any second hand pumps out there already made up?

Yep, garden sprayer is standard equipment for this job. navitron or eco-nomical and no doubt others will sell you one with a suitable adaptor to brass thread (remarkably good gear). And you can still use it as a garden sprayer or PUR-foam-setting-encourager once you cleaned the antifreeze out thoroughly.

Wellington, Somerset.

You can always use a garden hose from your mains tap, to do the final pressurising. Most water suppies are at least a couple of bar and I found it vey simple to attach a hose to my garden tap, and connect the other end to the solar system.

I presume Tim & tony that you just pressurised to 2 bar. With my system, when flushing was complete, I had to take the pressure up to 6 bar to check all joints for leaks before finally reducing to operating pressure.

Do you have some sort of heat dump by-pass on the circuit?

If you pressurise with a hose how do you get the right fraction of antifreeze in?

Yes it is a bit dull pressurising with hand pump then going into loft to let air out and going back and forth a few times, but it's a trivial item after putting the system together. It is a good idea to have your bleed valve inside the loft and not on the roof, especially when you replace the antifreeze in 5 or 10 years, or have any other issues that require draindown (people quite often have problem with anti-thermosiphon valves that need fettling or replacing, for example)

I think your system must be slightly different from mine wookey. I simply have the collector on the bungalow roof and the pumpstation on the ground floor directly below in my boiler room with just the twin pipes between. I have the pumpstation,the controller, the pressure vessel, the overflow tank all co-located. I don't have to go in the loft etc., to do any bleeding of entrained air, I can control everthing from the boiler room.

Tony how does your interseasonal store work?

The pump station has something called AirStopp incorporated. I thought high point bleed valves and roof mount AAVs were a thing of the past.

my understanding (from watching the manufactureers videos) is that the filling station pumps fluid round the system at high speed to "flush" the system out and also to force through any air that is trapped in any air locks.

I know that an air bleed should be at the highet point in the system, but it is almost inevitable that there will be several inverted sections of pipe (possibly in the panel itself).

Just filling and pressurising the system won't get rid of these. Until they dissolve way and get bled out (which could take weeks or months) the flow rate of the system could be comprimised.

By running the fluid through at high flow rates and duping into the settling tank for any air to bubble out, before recirculating it would seem to be a good idea.

Of course the money asked for the filling stations is crazy (I was quoted £1200)

SO I came up with my DIY filling station.

What you need:

A mains powered drill (240 or 110), ideally with a "hold on" button - otherwise you have to use a cable tie
A plastic container something like this
A plank of wood to fit across the top of the box
A drill powered pump
Some hoses to connect from the pump to the solar system (I used some old washing machine hoses)
An RCD (to prevent electrocution - remember kids, water and electricity are not good playmates!)
A kettle, some tea bags, sugar and milk

Total cost, about £30 (assuming you already have a drill)

You screw the plan across the top of the box, up through the flange of the box.

Screw the pump to the plank and fit your drill (via the RCD)

Fit the hoses, one from the bottom of the box into the pump, one from the pump output to your solar system, and one from the solar system return back into the box

Pour some premixed solar fluid into the box, turn on the drill and watch the fluid get pumped into your system. As the fluid gets sucked away add more fluid. Use the hold button on the drill to keep the drill running, or use a cable tie.

At some point the fluid will start to splutter out of the return pipe back into your box, probably mixed with a load of bubbles. At this point stop adding fluid, the system should happily circulate with bubbles coming out in lesser numbers as time goes on.

At this point use the kettle, tea bags and milk to make yourself a cuppa, add sugar to taste

Keep going for about 15 minutes, occasionally topping up as required.

My drill pump produces a couple of bar static pressure, so I can pressurise by shutting the return valve and running the pump on a bit.

I'll try and take a picture and post, in the mean time here are some example pics.

Hope this helps

Drill pump example:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/WolfCraft-B2206-Super-Pump-Collar/dp/B0001P197C/ref=dp_cp_ob_diy_title_3

Plastic box example:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Litre-Plastic-Storage-Box-Lid/dp/B001V5M3NA/ref=sr_1_10?s=diy&ie=UTF8&qid=1327521339&sr=1-10

BES are selling solar system filling units for £382.72 +VAT. A bit of an improvement on your figure Paul.

Could be - will file that info.

Hope your air bleed valve is isolated from the 'hot ' pipework by a good ball valve!
A decent filling station will rid the pipework of air and debris and give a realistic pressure test to all fittings and components.
Will also give your expansion vessel a tweak(don't forget to set the pressure!)

Sounds good pmusgrove.
Would be worth checking pressure now, also look at PRV open pipe to check no fluid loss.
Blowing the PRV can cause some issues if the system hasn't been flushed through prior to filling and debris sits on valve seat keeping valve fractionally open.
I like to pressurise with air first, saves sticky moments if kit fails.
Another favourite pressure problem is not setting the Expansion vessel before filling.
Hope all's well

Sounds like possible condensation inside panel, might be worth contacting WB.
To set expansion vessel you need to know how much fluid is in the system and check with the table supplied to tell you the pre set pressure for that size vessel(supposedly calculated for your system)