Orbit58322 Traveling Sprinkler, Green (Traveling Sprinkler)

The media could not be loaded. To be fair I've only had this thing for about a week... but boy has it been a good week. I live in a very dry climate but I have to grow certain kinds of grasses for my tortoises. I purchased this thing because I just couldn't get to installing a sprinkler system this year. It actually does a really good job of following the hose and watering the lawn.I think there could be improvements made to the way it follows the hose, but honestly it works really well regardless. I would definitely buy again. Well worth the money. You can adjust how big of an area you want watered based on the angles of the spouts. Because I don't have a ton of water pressure, mine moves really slow. I set it so that it's watering everything far away from it so that it's not muddy by the time it gets to the watered areas in front of it. It works well for our dry climate. The body of it is made of metal and is actually really heavy and seems well made.Because our water pressure is a little low it also doesn't cover a ginormous area, but it covers enough for us. I love how it's designed to turn itself off when it goes over the ramp. So far I haven't had any mishaps where it does not turn off. I will try to update next year because most gardening equipment here in New Mexico doesn't last more than a year

This cast iron tractor was originally invented by John “Jack” Wilson in 1930 and it was called the "Automotive Traveling Sprinkler" in North Platte, Nebraska. A patent was applied for in Oct 19, 1937 and approved on March 1, 1939. Throughout 1930 to 1941, Wilson was an engineer and custodian at the senior high school and frequently used the invention to water school grounds. Wilson applied for a patent on October 19,1937 and it was approved March 1,1939. The inventor’s description : "A purpose of the invention is a sprinkler that is movable over a lawn. Due to water being forced through the sprinkler, the sprinkler is moved along the route of a hose through a motor-like interchange,".The Tractor Sprinkler was easy to set up and use. I had the Tractor Sprinkler running and functioning immediately out of the box. Very little assembly is required. One of the most striking features of this machine is that if ANY part breaks or fails, ever, you can simply replace that piece for a very little cost. I am 56 and have never had any of them fail on me, ever. They are heavy and work so incredibly well. I do recommend this for your lawn and it saves you so much money and time with anything else. It has a perfectly operation out shut off feature so you can let the Tractor run on it’s own and know for certain that when the cycle is complete, the Tractor Sprinkler and water has shutoff right where you want it to. Perfectly. You get a very nicely watered lawn to your exact desire, where you want it and also, when and where you want it to stop. No wasted water running forever, should you forget. This systems is excellent in that you do not have to worry about shutting it off after the cycle is complete. The Tractor will easy follow the exact trail of hose you lay down out for it to follow and watering all along the way. The diameter of the water or spread area is easily changed or adjusted. It is really the easiest, most reliable, accurate and precise watering systems without having a Professional install a in ground irrigation systems which could cost you a lot more than it’s worth. This Orbit Tractor will last you a lifetime. I certainly like mine.

I love this! It does exactly as advertised. It’s heavy, well made, ingenious!

The product is generally good. Why do you want to buy a traveling sprinkler? Because you lay your garden hose down all around your yard which becomes the path the sprinkler will follow - it will travel along this path and water your entire garden/yard - no manual and multiple changing of sprinkler positions required - this will save you tons of time. But there are 2 major considerations with this particular sprinkler you must be aware of:1. plastic gears2. questionable effectiveness of auto-shut-off rampI've only been using it for 2 weeks now so can't say much about durability. This is not my first time using this type of sprinkler - I had one about 12 years ago that was excellent - very heavy, solid metal and had metal gears. The metal gears added to the weight of the product but weight is not a down-side with this type of sprinkler because it makes the sprinkler more stable as it travels across your yard and the metal gears give it maximum durability. I had to sell my old sprinkler because of a long stint out of the country, unfortunately. Having the need to buy one again, I tried to find sprinklers with metal gears but couldn't find any so went with this one, which seemed like the best of all the options I read about.Now on to the issues.This sprinkler has plastic gears. This could be a problem and something I do worry about especially given that to replace the gears, if (when?) they go bad, probably will cost you just as much as buying a brand new sprinkler. The plastic gears do make the sprinkler lighter but as I said above, you should not be worried about weight at all; in fact, greater weight is good. Plastic gears can be worn down far more quickly than metal gears.The 2nd issue with this sprinkler is the auto-shut-off ramp - it's literally a ramp that the sprinkler travels over which then triggers an off switch underneath the sprinkler. This is a very important feature because you want to be able to just set the sprinkler, go out on the town and come back home to find your entire lawn watered and the sprinkler sitting in your yard, turned off and ready to be brought inside. If the ramp doesn't work, there's no telling what can happen. For sure the water will keep running but worse, the sprinkler might run into a fence or a wall or fall into a ditch. In any of these cases, unless the sprinkler arms get stopped from spinning by the obstruction, the sprinkler will keep trying move forward which will strip the plastic gears.So far, my success with the ramp has not been very good (I have a ½" hose; a larger diameter hose will get you better ramp results but there is a maximum diameter the ramp supports (⅝") - check your hose size before buying). But, I did observe carefully the operation and think now I've got the hang of it - you have to make sure the hose leading up to the ramp is perfectly straight for at least 5' to 10' and perfectly straight on the other side of the ramp for about 5'. Also, the ramp must be perfectly in line with the path of the hose. If the ramp is even a little but angled, the springier will jump off the ramp, the auto-shut-off will never be engaged and you might get stripped gears if it runs into a wall or something else. When I first started using the sprinkler, I was getting 0% success rate with the ramp. Now I'm up to probably 90% after the changes I described above. But despite this, I don't think you will get 100% reliability with the ramp - it really needs to be redesigned to ensure the sprinkler can never jump off.