Battery Operated Timer

A customer we service on a weekly basis was introduced to the technology of a battery operated timer. A battery operated timer is used for valves that have been disconnected from the original wiring to the original timer, normally inside of a mechanical room around the property. The reason that battery operated timers are so great is because it allows you to avoid destruction of your property due to lack of connection.

Every irrigation valve is controlled by an irrigation clock (timer). Wire is ran from the clock to the valve, sending the signal to turn on and off depending on the settings on the timer. Over time what happens to the wire is that it becomes disconnected. Weather, Erosion, and animals are a few reasons as to how wire can break down over time. Depending on the location of that particular irrigation valve and the clock it can almost be impossible or so costly to re run wire from the clock to the valve. Our particular situation had the irrigation valve in a parking lot island with the clock in the utility room on the other side of the shopping center. In order to install a new irrigation line, that wire would have to go thru the parking lot and through the building to reach the location of the timer. Due to technology, battery operated timers have been created to help solve this problem that many face on medium to older properties.

A battery operated timer acts identical to your mounted irrigation clock but is within the individual valve box, allowing you to have a time clock adjacent to the valve. Battery operated timers come in 3 options, 1,2 and 4 zones. Battery operated clocks are powered by 9v batteries which cause the timer to send DC current instead of AC current which standard mounted clocks send. When installing a battery operated timer you will also have to change the solenoid to a DC Latching solenoid. These solenoids have the ability to interact with DC current. The simple way to tell a DC Latching solenoid from a normal solenoid is if the wires from the solenoid are two different colors (normally red & black, weathermatic recently changed their DC solenoids to Green & black). If the solenoid wires are the same color you have a factory solenoid which is only used for a standard mounted timer and will need to be changed to a DC latching solenoid in order for the battery operated timer to work. DC solenoids do not work with mounted clocks and battery operated timers do not work with AC solenoids. It must be battery operated timer with DC solenoid and mounted clock with standard AC solenoid in order to work properly.

Once the solenoid is changed to a DC latching solenoid, everything else is identical to a standard mounted timer. A battery operated timer will allow for continued usage of each zone. No additional upkeep is need on the timer except for a annual/biannual change out of 9V batteries.

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