Melnor HydroLogic 2-Zone Digital Water Timer

Product: Melnor HydroLogic 2-zone water timer. I had to re-seed a large part of the lawn after an underground drain expansion project. I needed to sequence water to multiple sprinklers with overlapping patterns. I tried some other famous brands, and found them lacking (either DOA out of the box or functionally inadequate). I'd had good success with the Melnor brand in years past. So I tried one of these new Melnor HydroLogic units. It boasts 2 independent zones, each zone has up to 4 on-off cycles per 24 hour period. It worked perfect - so I bought more to complete my sprinkler system. They are easy to program and are totally reliable. (NOTE: Read the warning about opening & shutting the water supply). I had a total of 5 zones operating one at a time, and independently sequenced twice a day. Very flexible! They are easy to pause on a rainy day - simply turn the function knob to OFF to pause, then back to AUTO to resume the cycles without losing time on the system clock. Each unit operated for 6 weeks on 2 AA batteries - and the batteries still almost fully charged after the system was taken down! I had to leave town for a week, and my neighbor volunteered to watch the timers. He had no problems.

It is the second one we have purchased and works great. The best feature and the reason we purchased it again is that you can set the day by the name of the day and not by the number of days.

I bought two units a 1-Zone and 2-Zone. I returned the 1-Zone for a second 2-Zone. The reason is below. But first the pros.PRO - I like the 2-zone unit as it allows you to stagger times by zones to get max pressure and volume of water to each zone from your supply verses having to share it with more sprinklers.Both the 1-zone, or 2-zone have (4) four separate watering's per day labeled ABCD. This gives you great flexibility. See cool season grass note below.* Even of you can run all sprinklers in one zone having a second zone can be handy for a hose. The manual mode is perfect for this.They sell three different soil moisture sensors $25 (wired), $35 (wireless) and $47 (w/ rain delay). It plugs in the back of the unit under what looks like a rubber button but is a plug cover. I don't think I will purchase the soil moisture sensor for now, but if it works it may save you dollars on your water bill to keep from over watering. However you will need to pick the dry part of your lawn for the sensor.For forecast RAIN I turn the timer OFF on the menu and ON when I want to resume Automatic timing, You have to remember to turn it back to auto. It does not have a rain delay timer, which is fine. I believe one of the hydrologic soil moisture sensors I mention above gives you rain delay.The MANUAL water mode is easy to access in menu. I use this to use a hose. I use quick disconnect fitting to disconnect one of the sprinkler zones and attach hose. Programing has a very short easy learning curve. It works well.CON: This is kind of a big one and why I gave it 4 stars not 5.. I bought two Melnor timers. Both the 1-Zone and 2-Zone units have pressure loss. It seems to have a noticeable pressure / volume loss when timer was inserted into the mix I have excellent pressure and volume at spigot. However in my backyard I was running three ORBIT Saturn III rotor sprinkler heads with one zone. It worked fine when connected direct to spigot through a "Y" splitter to these 3 sprinklers. One sprinkler was on it's own leg of splitter and two sprinklers on the other leg in series.. After the timer was inserted, still using the "Y" splitter I lost 10% to 20% of the sprinkler range. I don't have exact number but let's say I was getting 28-30 feet from each sprinkler head. With timer inserted it was 26 feet or less. That was not acceptable as I was counting on the full sprinkler range to cover the lawn. My "Y" splitter had individual ball valves to cut off flow to one or both legs. It was clear that I could get almost all the sprinkler radius back by shutting off one or two sprinklers. So I returned the 1-zone and got a 2-zone Melnor timer. I now stagger start times. However I did try to run both zones at the same time with the 2-zone. No "Y" adapter needed as the timer has two outlets. It is darn close to being like it was before with out the timer with "Y" on;y but not quite... but good enough. So the 2-zone has some pressure loss but may be less than the 1-zone. Again I did not do a rigorous test. This MAY NOT EFFECT YOU if your system is not demanding full flow from your spigot.In the front yard I have more sprinklers, two (2) rotors and four (4) sprinkler heads. Even though I was not pushing the full radius range of the sprinklers I was always planning on SPLIT zones due to yard layout and use STAGGERED TIMING, so I would have max pressure and volume to drive each zone. I bought the 2-zone for this reason. I stagger the start times and it works perfect.SMALL ISSUE WITH ANTI SYPHON VALVES - As you know anti syphon valves on outdoor spigots is code and is intended to keep water from back flowing into your house, and in theory it contaminate your water supply. A couple of things, one I have the OLDER anti syphon spigots where they added on a valve at the end of the spigot. It has a flapper valve, spring and a plastic plunger that sits inside right at the end where the garden hose screws on. The MELNOR has a cone shaped screen that interferes with the inner working of the anti-syphon. At first I pulled the screen which is integrated with the rubber washer for a plain washer, just to test the system. BTW I tested the before and after screen and it had nil affect on water pressure/flow. So as a permanent solution I disabled the Anti Syphon and got rid of the interference. With the Melnor shut off valves you will not get back flow from your irrigation system. One of my lines goes up a hill. When I turned off the spigot before the timer the anti syphon would BLURP a lot of water on the ground. However with the timer that is not an issue as it has a shut off valve. However after elimination of anti syphon it is never an issue.There are TWO ways to get rid of the anti syphon on my style of spigot. One is an expensive SPIGOT MASTER adapter and another is modify the anti syphon fitting that screws on the end of the spigot. I did the latter. Spigot master is expensive at $21 but it an elegant solution. Keep in mind when you take off the anti syphon fitting you can NOT attach a hose direct. They use different threads (ex 1-3/16 male fine, not MHT, male hose thread,Bottom line going from 1-zone to 2-zone fixed my water flow issue in back yard. The front yard had more sprinklers and running all of them at one time would be sporty, so I run half of them at a time. It works well.CON: Having a hard time getting a hold of customer service. I left a ticket request on their web site, no answer in a few days. I called and got a message to leave a message. We will see if they call back. I was going to ask about how to improve the water flow so I could use a single zone timer unit. Since I replaced it already with a two zone unit, it is moot at this point. The other mystery was the rubber button on the back. It turns out to be a cover for the soil moisture probe sensor connector. I accidently knocked the "button" off and saw the connector pins... and it dawned on me. They say 7 year warranty? We shall see.Possible issue.? I noticed reviews of people complaining of stuck open valves. This could be a big deal if your water runs for days. Not only damage but cost of water could be huge. The fix from Melnor is go into manual mode and cycle the valve. These complaints seem to be from 2018 so I hope this issue is solved. I am still watching my system but when I go out of town it would be a disaster if the valve stuck open.CONCLUSION: I recommend this if you need multi (4) start run times per day. Most timers have one time or one time plus X hours and fixed run time. I have only had the units for a few days, but I enjoy them. It will save me hours and hours every week over manual watering the lawn, which I did all spring as I just seeded an all new lawn. Lawn came in great. Having the timer spray water early, mid day (to cool the lawn) and evening will keep the new baby lawn from stress during this coming summer.*NOTE = Mid day watering. I have "cool season" grass in the transition zone, so June through Aug is going to be a challenge. To keep the grass from checking out in the +90 degree days I will give it short light or short watering, in early afternoon and late afternoon (as well as deep watering in morning). The reason is a light water will cool grass and ground from evaporation. Note the myth is that watering in mid day is bad. If that were true in places like Florida (where it almost always rains mid afternoon in heat of day) would result in dead grass lawns everywhere. I don't live in Florida but this makes my point. Golf courses do this.

I was a little concerned based on other reviews about this not being able to have a solid seal, but without any sort of plumbers tape I'm not getting any leaks whatsoever. Granted I only have used this for a day or two. Programming is super clear and not nearly as complicated as I thought, the instructions are great in this regard. For what you get with two zones each with four customizable start times and water duration times, I don't think you can beat the price. Definitely recommend.

8/14/21—-Over the years improvements have found their way to the product resulting in an easy to program dependable timer.I think the programming is intuitive & it’s now possible to make changes without reprogramming .New features include four daily cycle programming. Most every other brand/design locks you into a specific time. If you start watering at 6:00 am for instance your forced to water every 2,4,6,12 or 24 hours and each the same duration! but with the (A)(B)(C)(D) cycle your able to set 4 totally unique start times and duration, like 8:15am for 10 minutes 12:30pm for 20 minutes 7:45pm for 45 minutes and 4:20am for 5 minutes. This flexibility is somewhat unique for consumer grade equipment. Also there’s a New button for direct access to each cycle and a bigger display.The big keypad buttons are easy to see & use even with gloves.The removable battery tray has a rubber seal to keep out moisture, it also helps keep corrosion isolated in the event of a leaking alkaline battery.Battery capacity display.Uses 2 AA alkaline batteries and average battery life for me has been 4+ months.Next watering cycles are always displayed.These timers have served me well in the past, I expect this new model will as well.BTW , I’m retired & not associated with any products whatsoever.