Diagnostic system for irrigation controllers

• US 6,694,195 B1
• Filed: 02/14/2001
• Issued: 02/17/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Toro Company (Toro)
• Original Assignee: The TURO Company
• Inventors: Garcia, Richard J.
• Primary Examiner(s): VOELTZ, EMANUEL T
• Application Number:
  US09/783,761
• Time in Patent Office: 1,098 Days
• Field of Search: 700/14, 700/16, 700/23, 700/26, 700/283, 700/284, 137/624.11, 239/67-70
• US Class Current: 700/26
• CPC Class Codes: A01G 25/16 Control of watering
• CPC Class Codes: Y10T 137/86389 Programmer or timer

Abstract

Remote diagnosis of an irrigation controller is made possible by encoding the settings of the controller into a numeric or alphanumeric code, displaying that code on the controller, transmitting the code to a remote interpretive computer, generating at that computer a chart derived from the code to show all of the settings of the controller, evaluating the significance of the settings to the functioning of the controller, and advising the operator of the controller on the basis of the chart.

Claims

1. A diagnostic system for irrigation controllers, comprising:

a) a controller arranged to operate at least one watering zone in accordance with at least one watering program having selectable settings stored in a memory associated with said controller;

b) a selectably actuatable code generator associated with said controller and arranged to generate a code representative of said settings;

c) an interpretive computing device and;

d) means for conveying said code to said computing device;

e) said computing device being arranged to determine from said code said settings and to display said settings.

2. The system of claim 1, in which said computing device is remote from said controller.

3. The system of claim 1, in which said code is selectably displayed at said controller.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of watering programs and a plurality of zones each operable in accordance with a selectable one of said programs, said code including information regarding the run time and program associated with each zone, and the watering start times associated with each program.

5. A method of diagnosing malfunctions in an irrigation system operated by a settable controller, comprising the steps of:

a) generating in said controller a code representative of the settings of said controller;

b) transmitting said code to an interpretive computing device;

c) causing said computing device to generate from said code indicia showing the settings of said controller; and

d) displaying said indicia for evaluation of said settings.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said computing device and said controller are remote from one another, and which further comprises the step of:

e) transmitting said evaluation to the operator of said controller.

7. The method of claim 5, in which said system includes a plurality of watering zones and a plurality of watering programs selectable for each of said zones, and said chart displays for each zone its selected run time and program, and for each program the start times of that program.