Pump station controls for golf course irrigation.

We troubleshoot, repair and retrofit the controls on golf course irrigation pump stations: the PLC, the touch screen, the drive and the alarms. We are in Cranbrook, BC and drive to courses within about three and a half hours.

Book a free pump station review or call Warren at 250-581-2225

Grey pump station cabinet door with a drive keypad, a Siemens touch screen, an alarm light, a reset button, four hour meters and pump switches lit green
Bootleg Gap Golf, Kimberley, BC. June 2026. The finished door on a SyncroFlo pump station built in 2001, with the station watering.
The two kinds of work we do
Service calls Warren Oler, an electrician who writes his own PLC code, comes to your pump house. It starts with a free review.
SyncroFlo retrofit New controls in the cabinet you already have. At Bootleg Gap Golf in 2026 that was a new PLC, touch screen and drive.

What we do

Your irrigation software (Toro Lynx, Rain Bird CirrusPRO, Hunter Pilot) decides where the water goes. The pump station decides whether there is any water to send.

We work on the pump station.

The station we have retrofitted is a SyncroFlo. The same approach applies to other makes. Email us a photo of your nameplate and one of the panel door, and we will tell you straight whether we can help.

  • Free pump station review

    Within about three and a half hours of Cranbrook, we come out, look at the panel and the screens, and tell you what is worth fixing and what is fine. No charge. Farther away, call or email us a photo of your nameplate first.

  • Fix or rebuild the controls

    Sometimes the fix is one sensor or one drive setting. If the controls are too old to be worth fixing, we replace them and keep the cabinet, the pumps and the piping. The new PLC comes with a touch screen that shows pressure, flow and pond level, and alarms that name what tripped.

  • Remote support

    We can connect the station to our shop over a cellular link on a private encrypted connection. Bootleg Gap has been logged that way since June 2026. When the course calls, we can already see pressure, flow, pump status and alarms.

What we do not do

Sprinkler heads, field wiring and decoders, or the central irrigation software itself. If the pumps run and the pressure is there but a zone will not come on, that is a call for your irrigation tech.

Before and after at Bootleg Gap

The old drive on Bootleg Gap's pump station died at the start of the 2026 season. We replaced the controls and the drive inside the original cabinet.

These photos open full size if you want to read the labels.

The pump station at Bootleg Gap
Course Bootleg Gap Golf, Kimberley, BC
Station SyncroFlo packaged pump station, Model 820-43L-125-2200, built April 2001
Pumps Three turbine pumps, one pressure maintenance pump and one transfer pump that tops up the pond
Drive One variable frequency drive, shared. The lead turbine runs on the drive. The other two come on at full voltage when the drive is at full speed.

The cabinet door

The small keypad with a text display is gone. The door now has a 7 inch Siemens touch screen and the drive keypad. The four hour meters are the originals.

Grey SyncroFlo pump station cabinet with a small keypad and text display, four hour meters and a row of switches on the left door
Before. August 2023. The keypad and the hour meters are on the left door.
The same cabinet door with a drive keypad, a Siemens touch screen, an alarm light, a reset button, the four hour meters and green lit switches for Turbines 1, 2 and 3
After. June 2026. The blue cable is a network cable plugged into the port on the door.

The PLC

A Mitsubishi FX2N-32MR came out. A Siemens S7-1200 (CPU 1215C with three expansion modules) went in on the same backplate, with Finder interface relays and a network switch. We wrote a new program for it, and every wire is labelled.

Old control backplate with a Mitsubishi FX2N-32MR PLC, rows of plug-in relays and red and blue wiring
Before. March 2026. The Mitsubishi PLC is at the bottom left.
New Siemens S7-1200 PLC with expansion modules, a row of blue Finder relays, a network switch and labelled wires on the same backplate
After. June 2026. The terminal strips along the bottom are the originals.

The drive

The old Toshiba E3 drive came out. A Franklin Electric Cerus X-Drive is mounted where it was.

Beige Toshiba E3 variable torque drive inside the cabinet with fuses and a contactor beside it
Before. August 2023. This is the drive that died.
Black Cerus X-Drive mounted inside the cabinet with a new breaker beside it and the new PLC below
After. June 2026. The new PLC is below the drive.

The whole job

The write-up covers what was wrong, the new gear, the emergency page and the remote monitoring.

Read the full Bootleg Gap write-up

What we did

  • Replaced the PLC and rewired the controls
  • Wrote a new PLC program
  • Replaced the operator screen
  • Replaced the drive
  • Replaced the pressure sensor
  • Replaced the level sensor
  • Added high and low floats in the sump

What we kept

  • The SyncroFlo cabinet and backplate
  • The field terminal strips
  • The pump contactors and overloads
  • The hour meters on the door
  • The pumps
  • The piping

Got a SyncroFlo station?

If the tag on your station looks like this one, we have already done one.

Pump station nameplate reading SyncroFlo, Inc., Norcross, GA, Model No. 820-43L-125-2200, date of manufacture 4/01
The tag to look for. This one is at Bootleg Gap Golf in Kimberley, BC. August 2023.
What the nameplate says
Maker SyncroFlo, Inc., Norcross, Georgia
Model 820-43L-125-2200
Built April 2001

The PLC inside this one was a Mitsubishi FX2N. Mitsubishi stopped making that PLC in 2012 and ended factory repair in 2019.

If yours is a different model or year, email us a photo of the tag anyway.

If you are too far for us to drive, we build and test the panel in Cranbrook and work out the install with you and your electrician by phone, because installers and permits differ by province.

Every retrofit gets a special inspection under SPE-1000 before it goes into service, and the panel is labelled. Panels we build ahead of time are certified the same way.

How the SyncroFlo control retrofit works

We are independent. Controler and Oler Industries are not affiliated with SyncroFlo, Inc., which is still in business in Norcross, Georgia.

The station running

Both photos were taken at Bootleg Gap in June 2026 with the pumps running.

Siemens touch screen showing Turbine 1 on VFD, Turbines 2 and 3 on FLV, pond level 13.2 feet, setpoint 110 PSI, pressure 123 PSI and flow 1967 GPM
The main page of the touch screen. Turbine 1 is on the drive (VFD). Turbines 2 and 3 are on at full voltage (FLV). Pressure 123 PSI, flow 1,967 GPM, pond level 13.2 feet. Other pages cover alarms, pump hours and manual control.
X-Drive keypad on the cabinet door with a blue display reading Run, 60.00 Hz, 57.48 Amp, 100 percent
The drive keypad on the same door. Running at 60 Hz, which is full speed, and drawing 57 amps.

How it runs now

The operator sets one pressure. The PLC decides which pumps run.

How the Bootleg Gap station runs now
Lead pump The station picks the turbine with the lowest hours and runs it on the drive.
More demand When the drive is at full speed and pressure is still low, the other turbines come on at full voltage, one at a time.
Nobody watering The pressure maintenance pump holds pressure.
Pond The transfer pump keeps the pond between a start level and a stop level.
Alarms High and low pressure, high and low flow, pump overloads, phase loss and drive fault. An alarm latches and stops the pumps until someone resets it.
Drive out of service An emergency page lets the operator run the turbines at full voltage from the screen. The drive is locked out, the alarms stay live and each pump's switch still has to be in Auto. Pressure control is by hand in that mode.

Who you are dealing with

Controler is run by Warren Oler of Oler Industries in Cranbrook, BC. Warren is an electrician who writes his own PLC code. The person who wires the panel is the person who programs it and the person who answers the phone.

Oler Industries also does controls for water systems and industry. Controler is the golf side of the business: the same panels and the same programmer, on irrigation pump stations.

If you want to talk it over before booking anything, call or email and Warren will get back to you.

250-581-2225
warren@olerindustries.ca

Warren Oler
Warren Oler, Oler Industries.
Rugged laptop on a pump house bench showing a pressure trend in the Siemens programming software
Tuning the pressure loop at Bootleg Gap from the pump house bench.

Courses Warren has worked at

The control retrofit was at Bootleg Gap. Ask and we will tell you what we did at the others.

Where we work

We are based in Cranbrook, in the East Kootenay region of British Columbia. We drive to golf courses within about three and a half hours, which reaches across the Kootenays.

Farther than that, call anyway, especially if you have a SyncroFlo station.

Three guides worth reading

Book a free pump station review

Tell us what the station is doing, or not doing, and what make it is if you know. We will get back to you. If you are within about three and a half hours of Cranbrook, we will set up a time to come and look at it.

250-581-2225

warren@olerindustries.ca
Cranbrook, BC

Goes straight to Warren. Or call 250-581-2225.