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Vigoro 3015V Sprinkler Timer Internals and Valve Design

JonC — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 02:50:09 +0000

I noticed a lot of interest in my sprinkler timer review post and I wanted to expand on that a bit. In this post I’ll tear apart the Vigoro 3015V Sprinkler Timer and see what inside of it and makes it work. This timer has worked reliably for me, but I switched to the Orbit multi-zone sprinkler timer system so this unit was spare. I can’t resist opening up stuff and checking it out. Please read through the post and post a comment if you like.

The Vigoro 3015V sprinkler timer is a single-zone outdoor unit which connects directly to your outdoor hose lines and has an option for a remote water sensor unit which is attached to a receiver. The case is glued, or more likely ultrasonically welded closed around the internal components.

If you want to see large versions of these images just click on the image in the page you can use the << and >> button at the bottom of the image viewer to move between photos.

The first step in opening the case is to pull out my trusty craftsman moto-tool and cut carefully through the seam of the box. I wore safety glasses for this as hot plastic gets thrown all over the place.

I didn’t want to cut through the valves or through the plug for the water sensor receiver antenna, so I used a screwdriver just to pop the remaining edges of the seams. It came apart pretty easily.

With that done we can now see the internals of the Vigoro 3015V sprinkler timer and get an idea for how they do things. I’ve labeled the different components inside of the housing. You can see the battery terminals, Rain Sensor Antenna connector (mislabeled as ‘temp sensor’, the water valve and in the bottom of the shell you can see the ‘potted’ electronics section with the battery terminals going into it. The potting materials are usually an epoxy type material which is designed to completely seal the electronics and protect them from any moisture damage.

I disconnected the valve assembly for a closer look as seen in this next picture on the right hand side. The valve has a long barrel section which looks something like a rifle scope, and attached to the left hand side with the red and black wires is the drive motor and gearing.

Here’s a side view of the valve. You can see the drive motor a bit more clearly as well as the one of the gears that it moves. The gearing moves a pin in and out of the valve housing to start and stop the flow of water.

This picture below is the top view of the valve labeled and colored to show the high and low pressure side. The high pressure side from the water inlet comes in from the right and co-axially surrounds the low pressure section which goes to the outlet.

I removed the motor from the valve and you can see a bunch more labels. Of note you can see the high and low pressure taps, and the return spring in the middle. When the pin slides out it connects the high pressure from the high pressure tap to the low pressure tap, causing the main high pressure to compress the spring and open the valve. A more detailed pictorial sequence is further down in this post.

This is the main valve drive motor for the Vigoro 3015V sprinkler timer. It consists of a small DC motor and a gear drive with a cam on it. as the motor rotates (rather quickly) it presses the pin in, or pulls the pin out. When the pin is extended the pressure behind the valve diaphragm equalizes and the spring forces the diaphragm closed. When the pin slides out, the opposite happens.

Below is the valve body with the diaphragm removed. If you look at a large version of the photo you can see how there is an outer cavity where the high pressure water comes in from your home and then an inner cavity which is the low pressure/outlet side of the valve.

In the next 3 images you can see a diagram I drew of the valve in the Vigoro 3015V. This is the sequence of the valve opening. Closing the valve works in reverse.

I hope this helps anyone who was curious about how these valves work. There is a gate, but it’s very small and basically acts as a hydraulic switch to operate a larger hydraulically operated valve. It’s kind of neat for me as I’ve always wondered how these things work, and it took me a little bit to figure out how the thing worked. I was expecting to see a large gate with a motor that open and closed it. I think the Orbit valves may work like this, and I am going to be dis-assembling one of my spare valves from my Orbit Sprinkler Timer at some point this week.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments or corrections by filling in the comment form at the bottom of the page.

Another Scott’s PatchMaster Performance Update

JonC — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:13:35 +0000

The Scott’s PatchMaster I put down a while back has been doing well so far. It grew in pretty fast and has just been thickening up. It has now been mowed quite a few times. We started mowing when it ‘looked decent’ and have just kept mowing it as part of the normal yard. It’s not super-scientific (though I suppose it could be) but the right time to mow Scott’s PatchMaster is whenever the heck it looks like it needs to be mowed.

Turn the PatchMaster into part of your lawn as soon as possible because the chances are the rest of your lawn may look terrible compared to the patch. Have no fear, over time it will blend in. Before you know it you will want to patch your whole lawn so it looks as good as the patched spot but this would a bad idea, and very expensive. I know this sounds like an ad placement or promotion, but I’m not paid by nor endorsed by Scott’s to promote their lawn care products (aside from occasional advertising through an ad network). My true feelings is that a) the mulch material (paper) could be better filtered for plastics and other things b) if it’s watered it really does grow up quickly c) it usually looks better than the rest of your lawn and c) money well spent, so far!

YOU HAVE TO KEEP IT WET! This is critical or your PatchMaster will fail and your lawn will end up on FailBlog. Additionally, you need to have good loose soil for the roots to grow into. Heavy clay soil, or heavy rock soil may pose a problem to you. If you have either of those I recommend getting a pick axe and shovel and breaking up your soil (watch for water/sewer lines, check your basement for where they exit and use COMMON SENSE). Remove rocky/nasty soil or screen it to get rid of the rocks and debris and add sand/composted manure/topsoil if needed to turn it into decent soil. There are numerous sites dedicated to improving the condition of your soil, I have not written about that as of yet.

In the area in the photos below I added new topsoil to fill in a hole in the lawn. The soil is untreated with chemicals and all natural. It worked out great and I’m sure you can find similar materials local to you or make them from stuff from the local garden shop, Lowe’s, or Home Depot.

Anyway, enough from me, here are the photos of Scott’s PatchMaster at 63 days, slighty over 2 months.

Some Options for Sprinkler Timers

JonC — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:27:57 +0000

Having had to grow a new lawn in 2 areas covering around 2000sq ft we really needed some sort of sprinkler timer system. I had actually spent some time searching online to see what it would take to put an in-ground system in at one point. Although most of the components are extremely price friendly, there are a couple which are not. The first is the sprinkler system timer, and the second is the back-flow prevention valve which can run up to $300 in itself on top of the rest of your system. Add in the additional digging and modifying your plumbing, etc, it’s a lot of work and perhaps a job better after settling in for a couple of years.

Vigoro 3015V Water Timer / Sprinkler Timer (also known as a Melnor Electronic Water Timer 3015V)

We ended up going with some garden / home improvement store variety water timers / sprinkler timers that you just hook your hose to. The first one we purchased was a ‘Vigoro Model 3015v’ (same as Melnor) branded item which had a lot of programming flexibility, manual override and, in this package, the moisture sensor. The water timer without the rain sensor function is $26.30 at Amazon. (not the number of ‘review stars’ in the amazon popup when you hover over that link) The one with the water sensor is pictured below.

Overall this seemed like a pretty good timer. It has a lot of flexibility in the programming schedule. You set the current time (in hours only) and set the start time (in hours only). You then program how often the timer will open the valve in hours or days to water your lawn, and for how long it will do it each time, in minutes, or hours.

We used this unit at first on four oscillating fan type sprinklers. I noticed right away that the water pressure to the sprinklers was very low when they were ran and series (VALVE –> SPRINKLER –> SPRINKLER –> SPRINKLER –> LAST SPRINKLER) type setup. I bought a 4 way splitter valve and then split the hose 4 ways to the 4 separate sprinklers. This evened out the pressure much better (and is called a parallel configuration)

While the water pressure had improved with the 4-way hose splitter it was still weak, this of course is not the sprinkler timers fault but just additional useful information if you’re trying to water a large area with multiple sprinklers.

The rain sensor / moisture sensor did a reasonable job, and lets you adjust how sensitive to ground moisture it is. The setting varies from 1 water drop to 3 water drops to tell the system how wet you want your ground to be. If the moisture sensor detects that your lawn is wet, to the level you selected, the main unit will bypass any sprinkling times until your lawn dries out enough to require watering again. The rain sensor is great as it prevents the system from watering your lawn when it has rained recently, saving you money and possibly sparing you the dirty looks from your enviro-conscious-neighbors if your sprinklers happen to turn on during a torrential downpour!

Special Note: Attach your hose to this unit before attaching the wireless receiving antenna. Speaking from experience it is much more difficult to get the hose on when the antennas is attached!

Model: Vigoro/Melnor 3015V Water Timer / Sprinkler Timer w/Wireless Moisture Sensor
Cost: $24.95 (excluding moisture sensor feature)
Pros: Simple to setup, manual override, reliable, easy to read.
Cons: Splits hours evenly. a 6/noon/6 schedule is not possible, you only get a midnight/6/noon/6 schedule, and I didn’t want to water our lawn at midnight and I didn’t want to water too early in the morning, or too late at night like I could achieve with an 3 x 8hr schedule. This unit has received terrible reviews in general.

Orbit 4 Zone Water Timer / Sprinkler Timer

After messing with the Vigoro sprinkler timer and having the water pressure problems as well as the ‘watering at midnight’ problem due to limited timer configurations with that unit I decided to go to Lowe’s and see what they had in the way of a timer with multiple zones. Well, there wasn’t a lot available other than this Orbit ‘Complete Yard Watering Kit’. In all honestly it didn’t come with the 300 feet of hose or 5 25 dollar sprinklers so I’m not sure how ‘complete’ I would say it was. It did come with a 4 way valve manifold, the timer module and 2 electronic valves, expandable to 4 (additional valves are 12.95, mail order only from Lowe’s site and rarely in some stores).

This timer seems pretty well built, and it’s pretty easy to setup. It is somewhat the same parameters as the Vigoro module above with the addition of individual zones. As an added bonus, they seemed to know you did not want to water your lawn at midnight, and it allows you to set a schedule for 6am, Noon and 6pm, and to skip any overnight watering possibilities. GOOD IDEA!

With the addition of multiple valves, you have multiple sprinkler zones. I split the sprinklers down into 2 watering zones for the main peninsula lawn and set the timer to run both sets of control valves, one at a time, for 20 minutes during each watering period for the new lawn. It works great and reliably.

I like this timer much better, but it has it’s own problems as well. While the programmable portion of the timer is pretty great. The fact that you have to buy additional zone valves via mail order only is kind of a lame, but not impassable barrier. Additionally in manual mode it would have been a nice feature to be able to set individual times for each zone. With this module you can turn on one sprinkler zone for X minutes. Or alternately you can turn on all zones for X minutes. You cannot set Zone 1 for 10 minutes, Zone 2 for 20 minutes, Zone 3 for 10 minutes, etc.

Model: Orbit Complete Yard Watering Kit (Model #: 91591 / 27752)
Cost: Spotty Availability, cheaper version now available for around $49
Pros: Very flexible timing options and multiple zones. Expands up to 4 valves and is reliable. While discontinued the additional valves are still currently available.
Cons: You can only buy sprinkler zone control valves through mail-order. I have received and viewed some reports regarding the reliability of the reviewed unit in a poor light and in fact when I changed the batteries the unit died on the spot but in general Orbit has better product reviews than the Melnor products Vigoro re-brands.

Summary

I wasted so much time and money with these sprinkler timers that we might have been better off trenching and putting in our own sprinkler system. By the time we got everything taken care of working right, the amount of money spent on sprinklers, hoses, timers, watering at weird hours, etc could have just been resolved with a real sprinkler system with an indoor based multi-zone timer for a couple hundred more. Perhaps next year, things are working okay for now but not optimal. If you’re not able to do your own sprinkler system installation, then these may be the way to go, if you’re just being kinda lazy you may wind up regret it.

If you are looking for a short term solution for a sprinkler timer then I think these two models can provide you temporary relief. If you’re looking for something that is going to last you longer and multiple seasons, you might want to look at other sprinkler timers. I’ve found that while the particular multi-zone Orbit I reviewed has higher failure complaints, their smaller single zone units have a bit better reputation such as the Orbit 91213 or the Orbit 62001 which has been getting excellent reviews. If you want longer life from your timer, don’t leave it or the valves out over the winter. When you change the battery it may be beneficial to rub something like petroleum jelly over the rubber seal on the battery compartment to help it seal better. If you buy a unit that doesn’t have a sealed battery compartment, take it back.

If you liked this post, please see my other Lawn Related Posts and also my new article where I disassemble the Vigoro 3015v to see how the valve works.

I’ve tried to keep this post updated with recent information based on feedback from readers and information I find from other review sites and reviewers so that my readers can be better informed on their choices. I last updated this page on June 7, 2011. Best of luck with your lawns and gardens this Spring and Summer.

Sprinkler Modding

JonC — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:13:56 +0000

A few weeks ago I bought some Nelson Square Spray sprinklers for the lawn, but they were terrible and I had this urge to mod and fix them. I replaced these with some better sprinklers for the yard, but the square spray sprinklers may come in handy at some point. They have a top spinner which, when spinning properly, distributes water fairly evenly from the sprinkler out over the lawn. The factory design of this sprinkler uses a rubber grommet in the center of the spinner, which spins around a metal pin. This lasted about 2 days before the rubber ring began binding on the post and the square spray wonder sprinkler quit working at all, it just blasted fixed streams of water into parts of the lawn.

I modified one of the sprinklers this evening with ball bearings. The bearings are well greased, but I’m sure they’ll eventually rust and seize up. The best type of bearing to use for this is a sealed bearing, but I had none handy, these only had metal shields on the sides. This should get some more time out of these sprinklers at any rate, most people probably would have just taken them back for a refund, because in the condition they were in, they were useless. Here’s the procedure I used to modify the Nelson Square Spray, the numbers relate to the photos in sequence.

1. Stock product
2. Disassembled product: Base, Spinner, Rubber Grommet, Washer, Nut
3. Resizing the hole for the new bearing
NOTE: I just used a bearing I had handy, any bearing which fits the post relatively close.
4. Grinding the hole carefully
5. The bearing inner inner race and outer race were roughened up to give the epoxy something to hold onto.
6. The spinner was roughened around the hole, on both sides.
7. 5 Minute epoxy works great for this kind of thing. It holds parts in position in about 5 minutes, is able to be handled in about 15, cured in 1 hour.
8. I epoxied the bearing into the spinner of the sprinkler, being careful not to get epoxy into the ball bearing races. Epoxy on both sides forming a fillet around the bearing.
9. I epoxied the sprinkler spinner and bearing assembly onto the sprinkler’s center post of the base since the inside of the bearing was slightly larger than the post and I was using what I had on hand.
10. The finished product. The spinner now spins very freely and doesn’t catch and drag. The new sprinkler works as the original was advertised.