All, I just installed my system less than a month ago. I currently have one schedule that is doing all of my zones with flex daily. This weekend, I am doing my fall overseed. I have disabled my previous schedule and I’m trying to add a new schedule following the steps below. However, I get a problem when I try to set the end time. Can someone please help, I would like for the schedule to run from 8 AM to 8 PM. I really appreciate it!
Here’s the issue I get.
Go to the Irrigation tab, then you hit Schedules on the top part;
Then hit Create Schedule;
Select Fixed Schedule;
Select the zones you want to water, and name your schedule after that;
Select Daily Interval, and then Every day;
Select Start at a specific time and set it to 8 AM, for instance;
Start/End date you can set as you wish;
Then you hit Manual Cycle and Soak;
Cycle time will be 5min and Soak time 55min;
You hit Next until Watering duration;
On Watering Duration you will set it to 1hr 5min; (increase or decrease this duration by 5 minutes for each hour you’d like the schedule to run.
The way I typically run a winter seed schedule is to create 5-6 fixed schedules that run for a short amount of time spread out from morning to dusk. Doing it this way makes it really easy to disable the schedules 1 or 2 at a time as the seed germinates and sprouts. If you want to get really fancy, you can create an end date for schedules and they will automatically disable.
I’ve seen others go the cycle soak route, but as you need to cut back on watering, I’ve found it to be harder than just disabling a schedule.
That might be a question for @franz or @dane and the crew. I don’t know that I’ve seen documentation on this, and I’ve never found a max, but I’ve probably only had a dozen stored at any given time…
Great. I could have as many as 36, but I could get by with 12 if I had to, so I’m good on that requirement.
I’ve looked at several other controllers and can not find any that can even store 12. Some can do 4. The real limitation of the other controllers is that they do not have start date and end date for the schedules, so implementing a year-round plan that switches fixed schedules on a certain date is not possible.
Perhaps the Rachio developers were considering this kind of scenario. I’m a software engineer and this is the sort of stuff we think about.
