I want to run more than one at a time for a bunch of reasons.
Deliver more water in less time.
Water more than one area at a time.
Flexibility - Retain ability to water just one area.
Increase efficiency (less evaporation via faster delivery
water a zone before sunrise, not at midnight for the first zone, and before sunrise at the last zone (some of this is mitigated by soak times and broken up schedule)
75psi 1.049" ID pipe (per head)
If I turn a valve on w/o a sprinkler attached, I suspect I would fill a 5 gal pail in about 3 or 4 seconds. It flows pretty good, and has some good velocity yet for coming out such a large pipe.
In summary, it just seems like a simple thing to offer.
and should be easy to implement.
Nowā¦ having the sprinkler heads go to your music, that might be a bit more difficult
In my case this was a conscious decision to have 10 solenoids with a max of 2 nozzles per solenoid as I said for child entertainment on hot summer days.
Why so complicated? If you plan a sprinkler system you can do the faults as well and connect too much nozzles per pipe.
And the next question with your suggestion is, how should the Rachio 3 know what zones you would like to pair if it does this automatically based on the total gpm value?
Letās go furtherā¦ If you would like this feature, you would also need to have an throughput gpm setting per zone. In my case this differs from zone to zone. Some zones have only 1 nozzle, others have 2 (twice as much throughput on that piping.)
I my case it would help for the start to simply pair zones in the app.
I totally agree!
As I and @tmcgahey already said. Watering my yard currently takes about 14 hours for 10 zones with 15 nozzles in total.
Iām not talking about huge nozzles to water golf yards or so. I use Hunter prs40 with rotary nozzles and these have a max throughput of 0,484 gpm. With a max of 2 nozzles per pipe Iām at a max of 0,968 gpm.
My water main pipe delivers 7,925 gpm at 3.4 bar. So any more apprehension I cannot pair up to 4 zones?
My yard is just 180sqm and totally flat!
I totally agree, but it should be enough for the max of 4 solenoids per terminal with a max of 5 Hunter prs40 nozzles having a total throughput of 2,42gpm on that setup with the paired zones.
I think there is some confusion on what Iām saying, as it is the simpelest thing ever.
Lets pretend you had 16 zones
some zones 3gpm (single head)
some zones 1gpm (drip systems)
some zones 9gpm (3 sprinklers on one pipe/solenoid)
If you set your limit to 5gpm, the system would never run another zone at the same time a zone that exceed this number. e.g. the 9gpm zone would always run solo.
as for the 3gpm zones, it will never run two of them because (2) * 3gpm again exceeds the value of 5 you entered
The 3gpm zone WOULD however run at the same time as the 1gpm zone IF* (and only if) needed, otherwise it would only run the zone it needed.
If you had (5) 1gpm zones, the system could run up to all 5 of those at the same time (based on watering needs)
If you were to raise your limit from 5 to 6gpm, well now the system could run (2) of the 3gpm zones at the same time (if needed) and could even switch out one for up to (3) of the 1gpm zones on top of the one 3gpm zone.
Does that make perfect simple elegant sense now?
If you never wanted more than one zone tonrun at a time, set the system limit to 0.
This is WAY better than plumbing a bunch of sprinklers to one zone because once you do that, they are linked.
All the people that dont want to use this can set the value at 0
If you had a fire hydrant feeding your system, you could raise the number to 50gpm, and the system could then run as many sprinklers as it wanted without having to que up a wait list. i.e. it could be running (3) of your 3gpm zones, for 22 minutes then drop to (2) for the next 8 minutes, and if a drip system were needed, it could just come on without affecting anything else, etcā¦
Just seems so stupid simple that Im surprised it isnt already like this.
Another reason for concurrent zones as an OPTION for the software/controller: winter blow-outs. Iāve asked about this a couple of years ago with no response. For those of us in winter climates, while we run only one zone at a time for irrigation, the huge compressors used by system blow-out services before winter create enough pressure to blow out at least 2 zones at a time. Everyone Iāve hired has ended up manually opening valves in the yard just to get the job done quickly enough (I have 15 zones).
Those companies have been really frustrated with the Rachioā¦ as older controllers let them just jumper the cables at the controller, but not enough wire is exposed with the Rachio for that option. They said theyād love it if I could have a schedule that rotated through two zones at a time for a few minutes each, giving time for water to settle in the pipes before the compressed air returned to the pairs of zones.
Feature Request: Enable the Generation 4 controller and app to run 3 zones concurrently. Your competitors have been doing it for years. Donāt make it complicated. My old Irritrol TotalControl did it easily. https://www.irritrol.com/en/controllers/total-control-r-series
The problem is, you start letting people purposefully, or accidentally, run multiple zones at once, they start having pressure issues which results in poor watering, and they come back and complain that Rachio isnāt watering correctly.
I managed to build a custom PCB with 4 relays that fits behind my rachio 3.
Relay 1 controls zone 1 (up to 4 channels)
Relay 2 controls zone 2 (up to 4 channels)
Relay 3 controls zone 3 (up to 4 channels)
Relay 4 controls all zones (good for draining the pipes before winter)
I needed to replace the power source with a new 5Ah that also fits in the Rachio 3 housing after doing some grinding work on the housing.
I also put a jumper connector to the PCB so it is possible to change the valves to zones assignment.
Works like a charm!
Anybody interested in further informations?
