Gravity III ballast system sprinkler valves?

[mmandley]

Yes they run fine on a 12v system as well.

[zroutt]

Sweet, probably time to upgrade.

[zroutt]

I don't think I am going to find Irritrol around here. Is RainBird and Orbit all the same? I see they have similar setups to the Irritrol as I look at Lowes.com which is our major hardware store in my town.

[bergermaister]

Slightly off topic, but I'd still like to see how well that new 1180 of yours fits in the basement...

[zroutt]

Posted in my "First Surf" thread. Last post on there right now are some pix of the 750's and the 1180 almost filled all the way up. Still plenty of room to put the walkthrough down and they storage up front as you will see in one of the pix still isn't bad either. The very bow of the bag won't fill all the way up under the playpen.

https://forum.moomba.com/showthread....rst-Surf/page2

[bergermaister]

Thanks! Missed that one somehow. Man, that is tighter than I thought it would be. Your rear compartments fit great, but that front one is sure bunched up under the playpen. Maybe I'll just leave well enough alone with the 750 in there on mine.

[zroutt]

That isn't filled up all the way either, if that makes a difference. Tell you what, I will take new pix once I get these valves all figured out and can just pump one bag at a time and share that with ya. Then you could make a more informed decision.

[deafgoose]

I don't think I am going to find Irritrol around here. Is RainBird and Orbit all the same? I see they have similar setups to the Irritrol as I look at Lowes.com which is our major hardware store in my town.

Order them online.

Ever since I upgraded to Irritrol valves, I haven't experienced a single issue. Total piece of mind.

[cab13367]

If I am going to do a mod to this setup would it be worth while to get two more pumps and just dedicate a pump to each bag? Or should I look your way of doing a tee off the hull intake and fix the sprinkler valves?

Honestly, I wouldn't spend any money on different sprinkler valves. With as much ballast as you are using, you should really look into getting rid of the sprinkler valves altogether and going with a separate fill pump for each bag which is what many of us have done. But you have to address autofilling and autodraining issues. Best thing to do is talk to wakemakers.com to find out what your options are.

[zroutt]

Well that was an interesting and somewhat education evening in the world of ballast controls and sprinkler valves.

So it turns out that I have one bad solenoid on the starboard side vdrive bag. The other two solenoids are fine and operational. The issue came down to this. When I first got the boat home a couple of weeks ago, the previous owner never used the bags or he says twice. The two vdrive bags had holes in them and leaked like the hoover dam. But in my figuring all this out, I turned the three valves to manual on. DOH!!!! That is why all three bags would fill up at the same time. I remember doing so because I couldn't get the starboard side bag to fill, so I hit the manual override to on, on all three valves thinking that was the issue.

So now knowing how these valves work and don't work. I have one bad valve/solenoid, and two valves that are in pretty bad shape. I went to my local hardware store lastnight and got three new valves ready to drop in.

But before I go and do that I look at the web for Irritrol valves, to get a cost based analysis if I should go that route. Cheapest I could find is $54bucks a piece. I am all for ordering those, if they will improve my fill times enough to justify.

So I ask those on this forum, is it worth it to go to Irritrol, or do I just stick with what I have purchased? I am also going to call wakemakers today and talk to them about the possibility, and setup of a three pump system.