Most installers use the same nozzle in all rotors because it’s easy and they don’t have to think.
- Yes.
- Hunter specs are done in a non-windy building. But you can work from those specs.
- Yes. And you’ll learn a lot about coverage from the rotor to the end of the throw.
- Just input values and use advance settings to find optimum watering time.
- Flex will adjust. It may also not even water the middle zones on the same day as the outer zones since the precipitation rate will be higher in the middle.
Remember, optimum precipitation rate is obtain with the right pressure. You will get optimum precipitation rate with pressure regulated rotors.
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Yeah, yeah, this is super old, but here’s an added explanation if anyone comes looking:
Rainbird/Hunter/etc MPR nozzles will have a different precip rates for fulls/halves/quarters/etc. because of the motion. Think about it, a quarter head will sweep the same area 4 times for every one rotation of a full circle rotor. A half rotor will sweep the same area twice for every full circle rotation. This is the problem with contractors just throwing the same nozzle into every rotor regardless of the pattern. This is why a lot of times if you took an aerial photo of a school yard, there will be rings in the grass. The scheduling is set to the perimeter heads and the center full circle rotors will be under performing comparatively. You should be safe using the full circle precip rate of a mixed zone as a starting point if the nozzles are matched correctly.
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Yea, rotors are a totally different animal when it comes to setting up. They take the most planning to match nozzles, usually they come with multiple nozzles to match precipitation numbers for full, half, and less.
Recently had a system installed using rain bird 5004+ rotors. They came with an orange 2.0 nozzle. Any recommendations on which to use for full, half and 90’s?
Here’s a link to Rainbird’s nozzle performance chart:
5000-series-rotor-nozzle-performance-chart.pdf (rainbird.com)
I’m not sure what series you have since I can’t find any orange nozzles on their site.
But according to this link, if we assume your 2.0 nozzle is 2.0gpm at 45psi, I’d suggest using the 2.0 for your half circles, which is the nozzle default. And the 4.0 nozzle for your full circles.
1.5 could be used for the 1/4 circles.
Please anyone correct me if I’m mistaken.
On non MPR rotor nozzles you usually want to divide the cirlce into quarters, and go 1,2,3,4.
I was having the same issue too. Have no idea where the orange nozzles came from, but they definitely say 2.0. I have some of the regular nozzle trees which are blue.
