PDA

View Full Version : Weathermatic Smartline controller



Stripes
02-11-2011, 04:40 PM
Weathermatic is an American company selling irrigation products based out of Texas. They are relatively new to Australia and are only sold in Reece Irrigation stores. Their Smartline controllers have some awesome features including hidden start times- basically means each cycle only has 1 start time showing and you have to go to advanced features to bring up more. This saves on the usual call back to a house after the home owner has a play with the controller and messes up the program and makes it run for hours and hours. You can also get them to press a few buttons so the controller reverts back to the program you did, again saving you a call back.

They also have a "grow in" feature. This is used in new plantings. You set the program how you want it to run, and then you can program a temporary program from 1-99 days for newly planted lawns or gardens. Once the days you selected are up, it reverts back to the normal program. This saves you coming back and re-programming it once the landscape has established. Awesome for newly laid turf.

They have a built in multi meter for fault id's, and built in chatter box for valve locating- it turns the valve on and off quickly so it makes a tapping noise so you can find the valves. You can do this one valve at a time so you can find the valves.

You can pre set the seasonal adjustment for each month. Every other controller you have to get the client to change it as it needs it, either more water or less water by going up or down in 5 or 10% increments. The Weathermatic can be pre set so for example you can set it to give 130% in January, 120% for Feb, 110% March, 80% for April, 60% May etc.. You don't have to keep changing it.

They can also have weather stations added in. Weather stations detect the temperature and then decides how much water each zone needs based on information you program into it such as soil type, full sun/shade, and how many mm of water your plants require. It then calculates how long to run each zone for whether it is more or less. They also shut the system off when it rains.

The base unit is 4 zones and they are modular so you can add 4 zones at a time up to 16 zones.

I have installed about 40 of them in the past 6 months and I love them. All my clients have been very happy with the features of them too.

http://www.smartline.com/files/SL_Brochure_8x11.pdf

Fred's mowing
02-11-2011, 09:33 PM
Things are sure progressing in this field.
We gave up on installing during the drought.
Things r going the other way now, but u still cant water lawns in Melb, uless u have your own water supply.
With our own auto system, since the drought, I only use it in manual mode, unless we're going away.
Even with all the new fandango stuff available, I like to water when I think the garden needs it.
Cheers Fred.

Stripes
03-11-2011, 06:54 AM
I was the same with installing during the drought, but as I was sick of gardening I was just dying for the dams to fill up, but with the de-sal plant they had to justify wasting all that money building it so they eased the restrictions so we can use sprinklers again.
As soon as they announced it I was trying to think up a name for the business. I love irrigation, especially fault finding. I bought a cable locator to trace wires underground and it blows me away the way it follows the cable and gives you an accurate depth as well. I have found valves that would never have been found without it. A few now have been 500mm below Agapanthus and soil and mulch. Another was smack bang 300mm below a Murraya hedge. One plant was planted literally on the valve box by some moron.

Controllers have come a long way. I have a weather station to install at my place here so I can get an understanding of how to program all the info into it. I have been trying to sell them to clients but they aren't cheap and so far I have not been able to sell one.

They now have some decent battery operated controllers too. Toro is probably the pick of them with this http://www.toro.com.au/irrigation/catalogue_product.cfm?prd=402 I installed one last year and was really impressed with it. You just use DC latching coils instead of the normal AC coil on the valve which is just a quick unscrew and screw the DC coil in.