Analog Sprinkler Timer How to Program
How to Program an Analog Sprinkler Timer
Hi, this is Skip Orth again with Father and Son Pest and Lawn Solutions. Today I want to talk about how to set an analog sprinkler timer.
A lot of people move to the Emerald Coast and have never had a sprinkler system before. Florida has a great natural resource in our aquifer, and we're able to tap into it relatively easily to irrigate our lawns. Most other parts of the country don't have that same resource, so people often arrive here having never seen a sprinkler timer. Here are the basics on how to set one.
The Two Dials
An analog sprinkler timer has two dials: a large dial and a small dial.
The large dial represents the time of day. It takes 24 hours for this dial to make one full rotation, and you can see the numbers on it that correspond to the time of day.
The small dial represents the days of the week. It has 14 positions, or pins, which covers two weeks' worth of time. Each pin represents one day.
Setting the Days
To set which days the sprinkler system runs, push a pin in if you want it to water that day, or pull a pin out if you want it to skip that day.
Setting the Run Time
On the large dial, the small white plastic pins are removable, and each one represents 15 minutes of runtime. If you group three pins together, that's 45 minutes of runtime before the system shuts off. Two pins together means 30 minutes, and five pins together means an hour and 15 minutes.
This matters because the timer won't switch zones until the pump turns off and back on. So however you group the pins determines how long that zone runs before shutting off and moving to the next one.
You can move these pins anywhere on the dial to change what time a zone comes on. For example, if the first zone is set to start at 6:00 AM and you want it to start at 4:00 AM instead, you can pull the pins out and move them to the 4:00 AM position. If moving the pins leaves an unwanted gap where the system would sit idle for 45 minutes or an hour, you can regroup the pins closer together so the system only pauses for the amount of time you want, such as 15 minutes, before moving to the next zone.
The Switch
The timer also has a three-position switch: off, on, and auto.
If you turn the switch to on and the timer is hooked up to a pump, the pump will turn on automatically. This lets you manually rotate through your sprinkler zones. To do that, turn the switch on, let that zone run for as long as you want to check it, then turn it off. Wait about 30 to 60 seconds for the pressure to drop. Once the pressure drops, the system will advance to the next zone, and you can turn the switch back on to run it.
In the auto position, the timer runs on its own. As the large dial rotates and reaches a pin that's pushed in for the current day, it triggers a switch that turns the pump on. The system runs for however long that group of pins represents, then the switch turns the pump off. The dial keeps rotating, and the process repeats at the next group of pins until it completes a full 24-hour cycle and starts again.
That's how to set a pin and dial timer.