😀 😀 😀
Just wanted to update this thread.
I got my Opensprinker controller. (like the new molded case a LOT) I replaced my RainBird ISM-9 timer with it. Luckily I had a phone jack less than a foot away, so I converted the line to Cat6 and plugged Opensprinkler into my gigabit home network. Powered it up with the transformer from the Rainbird and set it up for a fixed IP of 192.158.254.252.
The goal of this activity as stated before was to eliminate my problems with waterhammer. I had already installed waterhammer arrestors and they helped, but did not fully get rid of the problem. I became convinced that proper sequencing of the valves would take care of it….which is what lead me to Opensprinkler in the first place. I was experiencing waterhammer when switching zones and when the system shut down after the last zone ran.
Sequential mode did not work for me, as I experienced terrible hammering when changing from one station to the other. What did work was concurrent mode. I have a master valve, and that was causing most of my issues with waterhammer. So what I did was to turn off the master valve function in Opensprinkler, and let it treat my master valve like any other station so I could get complete control of it.
I set the master valve to run program 1 and to end a few seconds different than the last program, thereby giving me the delay I need. This eliminated the waterhammer I was having after the last program finished. To eliminate hammering when switching from one station to the other, I set the individual programs to overlap by 2 seconds. This causes the next valve to open before the previous one shuts. It took a lot of tweaking….but….WITH THE HELP OF OPENSPRINKLER, I HAVE COMPLETELY ELIMINATED WATERHAMMER!
I could not be happier with Opensprinkler! The down side is that events need to happen in a very specific sequence for it to work, so you have to program it very carefully. Opensprinkler will do exactly what you tell it to do, so you have to make sure you know what you’re doing! Thank you Ray for a great product!