Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Sprinkler controllers are often as difficult to program as a VCR, for much the same reason: cost sensitive design. I'm a control engineer and can easily see where the cost of relays or the minimal budget for microprocessors has affected most controllers. But ingenuity and careful design can succeed even with a consumer item.
This model is a very successful blend of physical controls, like the central dial to select the action you want, and elegant software design. The mechanical design is good as well. I'm disabled these days, but even so the biggest part of my installation effort was removing the two existing controllers that had been needed to handle our system. The new controller installed very easily, with generous room to run the control wires from the sprinkler valves. The supplemental units (Rain Bird ESP-SM3: 3-station Module) to increase capacity to as many valves your system needs slid into place and locked in with a lever. No trouble at all.
Once the controller is physically in place, the control unit -- that is the 'smart' part -- unplugs and you can sit in your living room doing the programming instead of having to stand in a cold garage. The manual takes you through programming, step by step.
Three separate programs are available, with complete freedom to set each up different from the others. So we now have Program A for the height of Summer, watering twice each night; program C for Winter keep-alive, which is one short afternoon watering to avoid night freezing; and program B for the transition seasons of Spring and Fall. In Winter, some of our property needs more water than others, and I did not have to cut everything in half or some such arbitrary measure. Each zone now has the amount of water -- and the correct time of day to be watered -- for each season of the year.
The device has two features that will be useful in the future I'm sure. A single value can be changed to reduce all watering times across the board. This "water budget" setting lets me respond to unusual heat or cold or to government mandated watering cutbacks if they should arise. It lets me adjust from twice as much (a setting of 200%) down to as little as 10% of the programmed settings. (Well, I could probably set 0% percent, but that would be unnecessary since it also has a master on/off switch for times when it is raining too heavily to water.)
The second feature is an exclusion day, which lets me deal with the gardener's schedule or, if it should arise, a local "no watering day" by regulation.
Finally, three important features for large properties, though I don't need them yet, are a separate master valve relay to control pressure pumps, a rain sensor to stop watering when enough rain is falling to make it unnecessary to water, and finally an auxiliary relay, for units like fountains and fish pond bubblers, that is not affected by the rain sensor.
Excellent design, with all the features a large property needs, but without the complexity of programming a clumsy design could entail with all those features to be managed.
And I might add that it looks quite ruggedly built, though I haven't had it long enough to assess that of course.
Very satisfactory.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Rain Bird ESP-4MI 4-Station Sprinkler System Controller
Click here for more information about Rain Bird ESP-4MI 4-Station Sprinkler System Controller
0 comments:
Post a Comment