070407 – Saturday – The Irrigration System

A week or two ago, I mentioned that I was going to rebuild the core of the irrigration system here at the nursery. Well, I spent most of the last week on this project and it’s all now up and running (yahoo!).

The new system is much cleaner and easier to program and, the best part is, that I know what every wire and every piece of the system is doing. I no longer have to live in fear that something among all those mysterious boxes and wires is going to fail and I won’t know how to fix it and our business will be on the line.

Here are some pictures I took as the rebuild went along:

After the old system components were ripped outThe wall behind is too weak to support muchNow the wall behind is braced up

 

The rain drives my work area insideComplained too soon about the rain…This is your life, mate

 

All the electrical parts are done and testedThe new 2.5 HP one-phase pump replaces the 1 HP three-phase pumpAnd now we’re looking at the final result - water for the plants

So, the old irrigation controller, circa 1980’s, is gone as are the 28VAC transformer, the big relay and the one-phase to three-phase converter. Now we’re running on real one-phase power (which is all we’ve ever really had here) and we’ve got a modern Rainbird irrigration controller and simple circuitry I can understand and repair when necessary. Not unimportant stuff when your livelihood depends on plants and trees and they are all depending on water to thrive. It’s a project I’m glad to have behind me and one that I am very happy to say went quite well.

 

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