How to make my system smart

[Modawg2k]

Hi, just got the generation 1 setup. So far I’ve ran the system manually and everything works fine. I now want to start turning my system into a smart one. I see there are a lot of variables that need to be known so I wanted to find out how to go about doing thing.

1. Soil: I’m still trying to figure out what soil I have here in the desert (Phoenix). I’ve checked some sites but it’s not quite clear to me if I have clay or sand.
2. Plant/Tree irrigation: My drip lines were setup with both trees and shrubs on the same line. How do I address that with my system?
3. How do I learn what waterflow is coming out of both my drips and my sprinklers?

[franz]

1. Soil: I’m still trying to figure out what soil I have here in the desert (Phoenix). I’ve checked some sites but it’s not quite clear to me if I have clay or sand.

This website should help.

http://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm

In the future we will choose this autmatically for you based on location, haven’t implemented that feature yet

2. Plant/Tree irrigation: My drip lines were setup with both trees and shrubs on the same line. How do I address that with my system?

Good question, I’m hoping @emil can help with that. He’s the true expert in this area.

3. How do I learn what waterflow is coming out of both my drips and my sprinklers?

I think you are talking about a catch cup test?

http://wateringschedule.com/instructions/
http://community.rachio.com/t/catch-cup-guided-process/1320
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gShoVigPL0E

As far as I know this is the most accurate way to determine nozzle flow and efficiency. We support custom nozzles that you can build after obtaining your nozzle application rate (in./hr)

The more accurate our input information (zone characteristics) the more dialed in the controller will be.

Also excited to be rolling out some simpler scheduling software very soon

Simpler Scheduling for Spring

I wanted to thank the community for all of the feedback we have had with flex schedules. It has been invaluable in helping us revisit how our schedules will work this year. For our Spring release we will be moving back to one unified, simple to use scheduling model. Flex schedules ultimately helped us determine some things we did right, and some things we missed. In my opinion the dynamic nature was attractive, but configuring them for the normal user was difficult. I even had a difficult time…

Hope this helps.

[Modawg2k]

@franz
Thanks, I looked up the soil website and it says “ebony very gravelly loam”… which loam would I put for my property? I see “clay loam”, “Sandy loam”, and “loamy sand”

[franz]

If I had to guess it would be Sandy Loam

[emil]

“ebony very gravelly loam”… which loam would I put for my property?

@Modawg2k, if you have some free time, a mason jar test is the easiest way to determine what type of soil you have. If you want to geek out on soils, here’s a white paper for some light reading

Plant/Tree irrigation: My drip lines were setup with both trees and shrubs on the same line. How do I address that with my system?

This is fairly common in drip lines, yet is technically a design flaw as trees and shrubs can have very different watering requirements; both due to plant type and root zone depth. There’s two things you’ll need to consider moving forward:

1. Vegetation type – It’s best to go with the majority rule; do you have more trees or shrubs on this zone?

2. Nozzle type – Do you know if each plant is using the same emitter? Do some plants have more than one emitter? In a mixed zone like you have, the drip zone might be designed to apply more water to some plants and less to others. If this is the case, usually the designer had a run time calculated that we might need to back into the app for scheduling and bypass the zone setup. If you’re not sure how the drip zone was designed and/or what emitters were installed, it might be easier to perform a catch cup test on your drip zone or use your water meter to back into the application/precip rate. For details, please refer to this community thread.

Hope this helps. Happy Watering!