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FEATURES
While a perception exists that problematic taps are the ones
that arrive from the Far East, even the superior German
and Swiss engineered units have proven themselves to be
temperamental. “Our stuff comes from Switzerland,” says
Geberit South Africa’s Leonard da Silva.
“Sensor range and infrared sensors are sometimes finicky.
Electronic components do not last forever. Batteries run
flat. It’s not technically challenging, but there are issues,”
he confirms.
He says South Africa is a country that does not like
maintenance. “You put battery supplies in, they run flat and
stop working and it is somehow the supplier’s fault.
“With the older stuff, everything was in the body of the tap, so
maintenance was a bit of a nightmare. You had to remove the
entire tap. The new taps are bulletproof; maintenance is all
done underneath in a box, so you can just chop and change.
It’s a plug and play system.”
A separate power box
like this one simplifies
maintenance procedures.
close to the toilet with the actuation right there, as people
cannot actuate the toilet around a corner.
Conversely, an electronic unit’s wire can run just about
anywhere; you could have a duct in the wall to pull the
wires through. In fact, there is an electronic solution for any
application you can think of.
Another issue facing electronic taps relates to water pressure.
For example, in rural areas, where water tanks are supplying
water at very low pressures, you won’t get very good water flow,
as you are porting through solenoid valves.
Tapped out
For some companies, persistent niggles simply outweigh the
market potential. “We don’t sell electronic taps and haven’t
done so for six or seven years now,” says Craig Hedenryck of
Walcro Taps.
“We used to sell a range from one of our UK suppliers, which
were targeted towards the medical industry. Our system was
modular, with a centralised control box and five or six separate
solenoids. But we never had great sales and had numerous
problems; not from a product point of view, but more from guys
not installing them correctly.
“We’ve since been to hospitals and they are not keen on going
the electronic tap route, as the wards are still fairly mechanical.
The only real market for electronic taps is the complete unit that
goes onto a basin in a public ablution,” he opines.
September 2017 Volume 23 I Number 7
He maintains that product training is key. “That is why we
have done so much research on the taps in Switzerland,”
he explains.
Flexible
Gordon says it is important to understand how flexible
installations can be, taking note of range, delay-in and delay-
out, as well as flow times.
“A lot of people want the water to start and stop immediately.
But that is not necessarily how delay-in and delay-out are set.
Some of them carry on running for a while, which is not ideal
for water conservation.”
He explains that electronic taps in the medical field are set
completely differently, that is, to detect a person’s body and
not their hands, while the delay-out time is longer so the
person can move out of the way to get soap and return.
Gordon says there are many nitty gritty issues that one must
look at with these systems. “You must be able to set the range
so the user doesn’t have to put their hand right up against the
tap, but also not so far down that it detects the basin.
“People must look at the flexibility of the products they
buy. If it’s very rigid, you’re going to experience negative
influences from the surroundings. If you’ve got an
installation where the power isn’t constant and they don’t
have a generator backup, then you’ve got to put a power
supply in with its own backup.”
There are other systems where, as the tap runs, a turbine
is turned that charges a supercapacitor, which provides
two days’ worth of battery life. “You’ve got to consider the
type of installation. If it’s office blocks and hotels, you put a
transformer in to change from 220V to 9V.”
He says electronic taps are