The Importance of Reliable Wiring in Automatic Irrigation
If you have an automatic irrigation system, whether it controls the valves at your house or the sophisticated central control on a golf course, you most likely have wiring. A typical golf course can have over 40 miles of wiring, but most people aren’t aware of this because it’s all hidden underground.
The only visible parts are where the wiring connects to the controller or sometimes the valve, so it’s understandable that people don’t really know how much wiring is involved. Because the wire is buried and out of sight, and in most cases, people have no idea where the wire is buried, it’s imperative that you have wire that’s reliable and bulletproof.
The Wire Manufacturing Process: A Closer Look
So how can you ensure the quality of your wire? It all depends on how it's made. I recently visited one of our vendor partners to see how wire is made, and I was blown away by the process.
First, they get raw material called copper rod. Here’s what it looks like:
The copper rod is then “stretched” to the appropriate gauge.
At this point, you have the right gauge of wire but no jacket around it. The next process, where they put a jacket on the wire, is much like extruding pipe. They run the bare wire through an extruder that places a jacket around it.
See how the bare copper wire is being pulled through the machine and a blue jacket is being put on the wire. This could be your station wire for your controller.
Regency Wire also makes large power wire for industrial use, and that process was very interesting. With smaller-gauge wire, like we use in our homes, you can have a solid conductor because the copper rod is larger than the resulting smaller-gauge wire. But what if you want to go the other way to get something like this?
This is how large wire is made, in a machine that looks like this:
They load all the bare copper wire and twist it so that the resulting wire can be used for large industrial applications. The spacing of the holes and number of holes is such that you get a tight multistranded wire—it’s a very cool machine.
As a distributor, we know how important quality is to get the best, trouble-free product. Seeing firsthand the number of checks and tests that are done in wire production, I’m confident that any wire we sell will be trouble-free and last a long time.
Thanks to Regency Wire for an Insightful Tour
A special thank you to Jimmy White of Regency Wire for the enlightening plant tour and for showcasing the intricate process of wire manufacturing. Your commitment to quality is evident, and it greatly reassures us and our customers!