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Hole 9
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This week we discovered an irrigation issue that was causing 10 irrigation controllers to fail. There was still enough power in the irrigation controllers to manually turn on the solenoids, but the face plates were blank. At first, we thought it was just a bad face plate, but as we discovered more blank face plates, we knew there was a larger problem. Coincidentally, we had experienced a problem with our answering machine at the shop the week prior. The answering machine just quit working out of the blue. There were no lights on, no error messages, it seemed like there was no power. For some reason, I decided to plug it into a different outlet, and low and behold it worked. The outlet that the answering machine was originally plugged into also had a computer, monitor, printer, and modem plugged into it, and all were working fine. I thought it was kind of weird, but I had more important things to focus on than the answering machine. I decided to leave it plugged into the new location for the time being. This week, the printer did the same thing the answering machine did the week prior. I plugged the printer into the same outlet that the answering machine was now plugged into and presto the printer also came back to life. At this point, I knew we had a problem. We discovered the irrigation problem the same day the printer quit working. As Jerry and I began to troubleshoot, we decided to test the outlet were the answering machine and printer had quit working (which by the way, was still powering the computer, monitor, and modem just fine). We found that the outlet only had 94 volts instead of 110. The rest of the outlets in our office tested at 114 volts. Next, we tested one of the irrigation control boxes with a blank face plate and again, there was only 94 volts. Thinking we may have a bad breaker or breakers, we tested the entire fuse box. All the breakers tested at 114 volts. Next we decided to test the output of the power conditioner. As I understand it, a power conditioner is used to supply a constant and even amount of power. So, if the output is 110 volts, it is supposed to stay at 110. Without it, the voltage may fluctuate between say 110 - 114 (this is just an example, I do not know what the actual fluctuations in voltage are). Upon, testing the output of the power conditioner, there was 94 volts. At this point, we were pretty sure the problem was the power conditioner. However, we decided to call the electrician who originally installed the power conditioner to come do some further investigation, as the input power was hooked up inside the power conditioner. I starting pricing out a similar power conditioner to the one we had. I soon found out they were not cheap. I closest one to what we had was going to be around $4400.00. I decided to call our Toro irrigation specialist to see what he knew about power conditioners. I learned that not all golf course irrigation systems use power conditioners. I asked what the consequences of running irrigation controllers without a power conditioner were. Essentially, there are a few potential problems that may arise, but nothing substantial, all of which are far cheaper than $4400. Considering the power conditioner itself was responsible for the very type of problem it was meant to prevent, we were contemplating whether or not it made sense to replace it. When the electrician arrived, he confirmed the power conditioner was bad. After talking with the electrician, we had him bypass the power conditioner. I thought it was interesting that he had never seen one used in any other application. So far, the irrigation controllers are working normally, and we have no other related problems. In case you were wondering about the outlet in the office, it was run off the power conditioner to supply power to the irrigation central computer.
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| Faulty power conditioner |
