Major flaw in solenoid alarm – HydraWise Irrigation Review

Had a false trust in their solenoid alarm. It is designed to monitor the AC current with some high and low threshold that isn’t settable. If the current exceed 800mA it assumes you have some sort of short. If it is at 0 it assumes you have an open. If it is anywhere between that it assumes all is well. It all seems to be based on a single zone/ relay install. This is great in that situation as if there is a problem you are informed. However, many irrigation systems have an irrigation pump which is controlled via the MV relay. While you have to program this MV relay and the report says there are two solenoids, the solenoid current monitoring alarm is totally oblivious to the fact there are two relays. So if a zone opens from a fault there is still current going to the MV relay and still turns the pump on. The controller thinks all is fine as the current isn’t 0. Now the pump is pumping water but there is nowhere to send the water. After about a month of this I noticed my grass dying. Went to investigate and my pump melted and so did the PVC pipe. $1000 in repairs. If only it knew what the MV current rating was or if it monitored the actual current versus the average over the last 10 runs it would easily shut of and given me an alarm. So all this intelligence and it failed to do one of the basic of intelligence.
Review by funtime on HydraWise Irrigation.