Nathan Gant
New Member
I am working with a customer who has the mechanical indexing valves and controllers. I recently had to replace his capacitor-start (Franklin Electric) pump relay to keep the water going. This is wired into his indexing controller inside garage. His irrigation water supply is from a 240vac submersible pump outside next to indexing valves.
I would like to consider installing a 24vac irrigation controller which can run his 3 zones without removing indexing valves. I am aware of several types of irrigation controllers which allow settings for changing pump delay times in software, which would be required to continue to use indexing valves. That, as you may know, is needed for indexing valves to work, as they are sequentially operated from pump ON/ pump OFF operation, when the sudden drop in water pressure "indexes" on to the next zone. So pump is started again for each zone to operate, and a lag time is needed for indexing to work.
At some point the indexing valves and timer may need servicing and it may be cost effective to go with a 24vac controller and possible change over to electric valves in the future. So I would like to at least have a 24vac irrigation controller and working pump relay ready to work with indexing valves when that happens. Electric valves can be replaced later.
The problem is that most irrigation pump relays I've seen are not capacitor-start and only are switched on by 24vac coming from controller. They don't provide enough boost to run a 240vac submersible pump. Can such 24vac pump relays be "piggy-backed" to work with the capacitor-start pump relay that use its own separate pump relay inside the indexing timer in garage? Would that mean timer has to be toggled OFF or toggled to AUTO to work properly? Also are there 24vac capacitor-start irrigation pump relays out there? No one at local irrigation supply store has an answer for me yet. I'm sure these types of pump relays are out there, but it's not a common one and I'm sure it's more expensive than the standard pump relays.
I would like to consider installing a 24vac irrigation controller which can run his 3 zones without removing indexing valves. I am aware of several types of irrigation controllers which allow settings for changing pump delay times in software, which would be required to continue to use indexing valves. That, as you may know, is needed for indexing valves to work, as they are sequentially operated from pump ON/ pump OFF operation, when the sudden drop in water pressure "indexes" on to the next zone. So pump is started again for each zone to operate, and a lag time is needed for indexing to work.
At some point the indexing valves and timer may need servicing and it may be cost effective to go with a 24vac controller and possible change over to electric valves in the future. So I would like to at least have a 24vac irrigation controller and working pump relay ready to work with indexing valves when that happens. Electric valves can be replaced later.
The problem is that most irrigation pump relays I've seen are not capacitor-start and only are switched on by 24vac coming from controller. They don't provide enough boost to run a 240vac submersible pump. Can such 24vac pump relays be "piggy-backed" to work with the capacitor-start pump relay that use its own separate pump relay inside the indexing timer in garage? Would that mean timer has to be toggled OFF or toggled to AUTO to work properly? Also are there 24vac capacitor-start irrigation pump relays out there? No one at local irrigation supply store has an answer for me yet. I'm sure these types of pump relays are out there, but it's not a common one and I'm sure it's more expensive than the standard pump relays.