Rain Bird® ESP Modular Irrigation Controllers

List Price: $145.00 Discount Price: $99.98

Features:

• Easily upgrades from a four station base model to 13 stations with the addition of 3-station modules
• Four irrigation cycle modes for maximum flexibility.
• Sensor bypass switch allows the user to override an active sensor.
• Fuseless, diagnostic circuit identifies a station with valve or wiring problems

Customer Reviews:

Excellent straightforward controller [Posted on 2008-03-29]
Sprinkler controllers are often as difficult to program as a VCR, for much the same reason: cost sensitive design. I'm a control engineer and can easily see where the cost of relays or the minimal budget for microprocessors has affected most controllers. But ingenuity and careful design can succeed even with a consumer item.

This model is a very successful blend of physical controls, like the central dial to select the action you want, and elegant software design. The mechanical design is good as well. I'm disabled these days, but even so the biggest part of my installation effort was removing the two existing controllers that had been needed to handle our system. The new controller installed very easily, with generous room to run the control wires from the sprinkler valves. The supplemental units (Rain Bird ESP-SM3: 3-station Module) to increase capacity to as many valves your system needs slid into place and locked in with a lever. No trouble at all.

Once the controller is physically in place, the control unit -- that is the 'smart' part -- unplugs and you can sit in your living room doing the programming instead of having to stand in a cold garage. The manual takes you through programming, step by step.

Three separate programs are available, with complete freedom to set each up different from the others. So we now have Program A for the height of Summer, watering twice each night; program C for Winter keep-alive, which is one short afternoon watering to avoid night freezing; and program B for the transition seasons of Spring and Fall. In Winter, some of our property needs more water than others, and I did not have to cut everything in half or some such arbitrary measure. Each zone now has the amount of water -- and the correct time of day to be watered -- for each season of the year.

The device has two features that will be useful in the future I'm sure. A single value can be changed to reduce all watering times across the board. This "water budget" setting lets me respond to unusual heat or cold or to government mandated watering cutbacks if they should arise. It lets me adjust from twice as much (a setting of 200%) down to as little as 10% of the programmed settings. (Well, I could probably set 0% percent, but that would be unnecessary since it also has a master on/off switch for times when it is raining too heavily to water.)

The second feature is an exclusion day, which lets me deal with the gardener's schedule or, if it should arise, a local "no watering day" by regulation.

Finally, three important features for large properties, though I don't need them yet, are a separate master valve relay to control pressure pumps, a rain sensor to stop watering when enough rain is falling to make it unnecessary to water, and finally an auxiliary relay, for units like fountains and fish pond bubblers, that is not affected by the rain sensor.

Excellent design, with all the features a large property needs, but without the complexity of programming a clumsy design could entail with all those features to be managed.

And I might add that it looks quite ruggedly built, though I haven't had it long enough to assess that of course.

Very satisfactory.

Good potential; serious flaws [Posted on 2008-04-27]
Our "Irrigation Engineer" installed this module (and over-priced it 300%) for our new system, which replaced an old one with broken piping and a simple, reliable electro-mechanical controller. We had problems with this one from Day One. Although it has an A-B-C switch for each of three different programs, that "feature" does not add value. It adds confusion and unreliability. All three programs are in effect no matter what position the switch is in. If you have set one program to sprinkle every fourth day, and another to sprinkle every third day, and a third program to sprinkle on two designated days of the week, it will activate ALL THREE programs. Bummer.

Our first edition of this expensive joke would not operate two of the valves. Since it is simple to replace the control programming without undoing any wires or unscrewing the box from the wall, the installer swapped a new one in which did run all valves. The problems we experienced were that it ran all three of the programs we had set up to give us watering flexibility.

It took two service calls, thousands of gallons of wasted water in the parched Southwest, and lots of bad feeling with our Irrigation company.

Avoid this thing; get something that works the same way every time. Our prior controller had dual program capability and worked perfectly on either program. We would have been happy to keep the old one, but the Engineer would not, and insisted on installing this new Frankenstein.

If I could give zero stars for this piece of Chinese junk, I would. I programmed mainframe and personal computers for the last 35 years before I retired, build personal computers, and trouble-shoot software. If it seems illogical to me that all three programs are in effect no matter the switch position, it sure isn't because I'm stupid about computers.

Indoor Only!  [Posted on 2008-07-13]
This is an indoor only unit. Other indoor only controllers are clealy labled as such. I had to retun it as I need an outdoor unit.

Not a user friendly unit [Posted on 2008-07-20]
My landscape architect spec'd this puppy for me and I regret his decision along with a some others I will not mention. I consider myself computer literate and have done some simple programming in the past yet this unit is as complicated as they come. What it promises it cannot deliver if the user has to hire a professional to manage it. Unless you are a systems engineer or have plenty of time to comprehend this unit's logic stay away and get one of the cheaper rainbird units.

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