Rain Bird SST1200O Simple To Set Indoor/Outdoor Timer, 12-Zone (Discontinued by Manufacturer; replaced by SST1200OUT)

I was replacing a more expensive light commercial grade timer that became erratic. I bought this because it was zone specific for control sequences. It is about the easiest device I have ever used that required programming. I was done in less than three minutes and I have 11 zones. It takes about 30 seconds per zone if you use it's ability to set up multiple cycles for a zone. That is the feature I like the most. You can have one zone with a single daily cycle, another with two and others with more or less.Reprogramming is a breeze. The rain delay is a great feature as is the ability to add/subtract a percentage of time depending on the type of weather. Wire connections were very easy and very secure and the display has large characters that you can read without glasses.Someone had mentioned that the second timed cycle for a zone is preset to begin six hours after the first cycle and they found that to be annoying. If you start watering at 7 am, go through the various zones, typically the second cycle will then start mid-afternoon or very early evening. That's not an issue because evening watering can lead to fungus so I find this to be ok.The only quirk-when you pick zone start and stop times, you must pick these in fifteen minute intervals. So if you pick a twelve minute watering cycle, there is a three minute gap from the finish of one zone's watering to the start of the next zone. No big deal but at first I thought the system was defective because the next zone did not start immediately. But three minutes later the next zone started just as it was supposed to, so all was well.Very nice quality that was well packaged. The user instructions are not very in-depth but are very easy to understand. You almost don't need them since the device is very simple to program. Great product that does the job well. I would recommend it to anyone especially those who find programming electronic devices to be a chore.

In comparison to the Orbit unit that this thing replaced, the RainBird is a god send. The old unit that I inherited appears to only be about 4 years old, but began to fail a couple of weeks ago. Before it began to fail, the unit was tediously slow to set and it literally took 30 minutes to set the time/date and watering times for only 3 zones. It was important to me to pickup a unit that was much more intuitive and better quality. Paying a little extra has so far proven to be well worth it.After reading the reviews and online manuals for several units, I went with the RainBird. I was not disappointed. This unit took all of 10 minutes to configure, right out of the box. I have a new lawn so I'm watering multiple times a day, which the setting only takes a few seconds to setup with each station (it's only one button and a few presses more). One very nice feature of the unit, is that if you setup all stations to run at say 7am for 15 minutes, the RainBird will cycle through each station starting from 1 and working its way to the final station, one by one. So, it will water station 1 at 7am for 15 minutes, then begin station 2 at 7:15am for 15 minutes and continue on until all programmed stations are complete.Also, I will be adding stations that I was not aware of when I made the purchase. However, this unit easily accommodates what we need with room for plenty more stations. Whereas, if I had saved 3 bucks and purchased a lesser unit, I would have been s out of luck. The only thing that I cannot comment on is how long the unit will hold up, as I've only had it for a week now. With that said, I would highly recommend this unit for any home with 11 stations or less.

This is a good system at a good price. Each section is programmed to start by time of day. Each section can be programmed to run multiple times each day. There are a lot of good features. I would recommend this controller, but it does have some limitations.Three features I do not like:1. You cannot stop a section mid-program (for example, to adjust a sprinkler head) and then resume where it was in the programmed time. You have to start again using the water one section feature. (Work around: I installed a simple SPST switch on the common which allows the program to run without the section valve being open.)2. If you want to run your whole program, but at a different time of day, you have to "fool" the system clock, or re-program all the individual sections. You can run an individual section, but the "water all sections now" feature requires all 12 sections have length of watering entered...it does not use your pre-programmed intervals.3. If you are using the pump-start feature, it shuts down your well pump between sections if there is a time interval. So if you are hoping to use the interval to build up well system pressure, forget it. The pump shuts down.It was a very easy install. All the wiring is done from the front of the box.

The Rain Bird SST12000 controller costs more than some of the lesser quality ones but it is well worth the extra expense. This model can be located either indoors or outdoors since it includes a weather proof enclosure. It is very easy to program which can be done before it is even installed if desired. It does not require a battery back up since the programming is apparently loaded into internal fixed storage. That even includes the time once the time has been set initially. How it does that is a mystery to me!!As a retired engineer I am impressed with the construction quality and the features available. Each station can be completely programmed independent of the other stations so in effect you have 12 zones that can be set up to water multible times in any day, week and so on. Lesser controllers normally have 3 or 4 zones with multiple numbers of different stations all programmed alike. This one feature is alone worth the extra money. I would give Rain Bird a big ATTA BOY for this well designed system.