I have two sprinkler controllers, one for a lawn and the other for a drip system. The lawn is on the side of the house and the drip controller is inside the garage about 50’ away. There are 12 total zones, 8 for the lawn and 4 for drip, and I am looking at installing a wifi controller and would like it in the garage. My lawn controller is 8 zones and there may be another for the main valve and 1 common. Would it be possible using a 10 conductor line to run those 10 wires from the outside to the inside where the other controller is and install the new 16 zone controller there? Will I just use wire end caps or electrical tape to connect the outside lines to the new wires and run it along the outside of the house through the garage and then plug it into the new controller?
Does it have to be irrigation wire or can I use any 18 gauge 10 conductor wire, including thermostat wire? Does the gauge have to be bigger since some of the line is already probably running 50’+ from the valves to the existing controller and I will need to run it another 50+ feet? If it has to be the same is there a way to determine the existing size?
The drip has two commons and the grass has one which leaves me with three, but the Iro only has two. Can I splice the two in the existing drip into one and plug it into one of the two in the Iro and be okay?
Also, is it okay to keep the orbit 8 zone installed since it is hard wired into the electrical fuse box? If I can use wire end caps to splice the exiting wire to my 50’ extension wire, I will likely leave it in this control box.
@Keith Can you send this information to our support@rach.io team? We have professional installers that can help with any wiring or installation questions. Thanks and have a great weekend! It’s easier to work with our support system with these type of questions versus the general forums. Thanks!
Thanks @franz I sent the email today. I am looking forward to consolidating them. Another question you may help if consolidating them doesn’t work. Can I use two 8 zone Iros controlled from the same account? What I can find is that they won’t talk to each other and may run zones at the same time. Is this going to be worked out in the future to where they can talk to each other and run zones at the same time or not at the same time depending on settings (some people may have two controllers at different houses and want them to run at the same time while others may have two at the same house and not want them to run zones at the same time.). Thaanks
@Keith You can definitely control two Iros from one account. They currently will look like two separate devices. Our roadmap for next year will allow them to logically be tied together (i.e. zones 1-16), but that functionality does not exist yet. Quite a bit of work from the top down (mobile --> Cloud API) to make that happen. Not hard, but will take some time. We are rebuilding our mobile app (2.0) from the ground up for next year, and hopefully this feature will be included at the beginning of the release, but no guarantees.
Thanks and let us know if you have any more questions!
@keith I have two 8-zone Iro’s at my home. One for the front Yard and he other for the back. I have them run on separate days to avoid any potential problems with pressure drops. They both show up in the App and I just switch between each one from the menu.
