Manakin irrigation electrical upgrade has begun
As we have discussed, really over the past two years on the Blog, the Manakin irrigation wiring system has been failing at an unacceptable pace. Installed in 2003, every one of the 1200 heads on the Manakin has a dedicated red station wire and then another common wire hooked to it. The wires are run back to the gray satellite boxes around the course and the boxes communicate via radio back to the shop. So wherever a head is, a red wire runs back from the head to a satellite. This means there are miles of red signal wire in the ground and over the past two years it has begun to fail and break and cause major headaches in the way of repair.
After watching the new Sabot irrigation system go in the ground we felt confident that employing the same electrical system on top of the existing piping and sprinkler heads would be a smart move and allow us to push a full scale irrigation system renovation down the road a bit. This upgrade for the entire Manakin will only cost $300k where a full scale renovation would be more like $3 million.
So all we have to do is a run a new wire to every single head on the Manakin, easy! We got off and running on Monday on 9 Manakin. It looks like we will be able to complete one hole per week. This winter we are just looking to complete 5 through 13 and then next winter we will finish up. The Manakin layout does not have a center row of heads in the fairway so for the most part we are just working on the sides of each hole. The heads around the greens will be wired up on Mondays and then we work down from there. The tees will be moved up during the week to accommodate golf play but the full hole will play as normal for the weekends.
Our entire winter staff of 30 is working together on this and dug up all 63 heads on #9 by Wednesday. The plow runs the new wire to each head, linking them in series. This plow has been owned by Hermitage for about 30 years. We bought a new wire feed blade for it and modified it down from its previous sand injection duties. Hooked to a new tractor with cruise control, flotation tires and 4 wheel hydrostatic drive it is working great at the moment.
Each head receives a new solenoid that has a dedicated address pre-programed in to it. This address is inputted into the central irrigation computer at our office. This patented module is basically a tiny computer that can communicate in both directions to the central computer on the same wire path as 750 other sprinklers. The module allows for quick diagnostics, an easy installation and obviously way less wire and potential for problems than the old systems.
3 different wire paths will complete the entire golf course. We are running the path for numbers 1-4 over to the driving range so it will be ready to hook into for next year.
We have all 3 paths terminated at the office already. The satellite boxes will continue to disappear as we go and our reliance on the radio will also evaporate after next year.
With every head being dug up it gives us the opportunity to level and straighten each sprinkler as necessary. We will rent an asphalt roller each week to smash the lines back down to help make this process as non-disruptive as possible. The asphalt roller may even find its way on to the greens next week as we hope to accomplish our annual deep solid tine aeration early in the week as well.
