Hi, I am in the middle of installing an irrigation system and am thinking about buying a rachio to control it but I have a question.
Can rachio open two valves in order to water a single zone?
To explain: I am going to start with a simple ezyvalve 4 solenoid box, which will be beneath the tap, near the house, to water beds and plants. I am not installing any sprinklers.
Only one of those zones will go down to the beds at the back of my garden/yard (I am British), so there will only be one hose going to the back (the rest are going to the front yard). And I am not digging a trench, I’m running it around the perimeter of the garden, by the fence, concealed in beds. Let’s call this Zone 2.
But EVENTUALLY, my plan is to buy a SECOND four valve box, which I would bury at the BACK of the garden, and run the one hose from the house directly into it, then use that one to dig trenches from to water the lawn. It is much easier this way, otherwise I would have to start digging up patios and all sorts.
But if I then made my lawn sprinklers Zones 5 and 6, they would only work if, when you select to water Zone 5, Rachio knows to open BOTH Zone 2 AND Zone 5.
@tomp - yes this can be easily with two single pole single throw SPST relays that can power the second valve for just zones 5 and 6. I’ll go find an older post that showed an example of this.
One could use the master valve setting, but the hose would be fully pressurized whenever the Rachio ran any other zone. Many hoses aren’t rated to handle pressure 24 hours a day.
The valves will need to be 24 VAC - not latching DC type.
thanks for this reply sir, but I am no expert in all this stuff and am a bit confused.
I am surprised a hardware solution is needed. Isn’t a software issue? ie rachio just needs to know that when I want zone 5 or 6 watering, it has to open the valve to zone 2 as well? (zone 2 wouldn’t actually water anything, it would just link to the next valve box).
@tomp - the master valve setting is either on or off for the entire system. It is not a zone by zone setting (yet, it has been requested by others in the community and I have no idea where it is on the product development backlog as I’m an end user, too). So if the connection between the two boxes was solid pipe and pressure rated, then one could connect the valve controlling water to the second box as a master valve and turn that on in the app. This would mean that the pipe between the two manifold boxes would be pressurized anytime the system was running - which could lead to a ruptured pipe if the pipe isn’t pressure rated.
The solenoids are easy and cheap - $US7. The wiring is only 24 VAC, even over there, so it won’t shock you. One just needs some wire lug terminals to connect it together.
