I’ve installed hundreds of Rachios in the past few years and it would seem appropriate by now that the Rachio team would expand on the usefulness of this controller to allow users to activate at least 2 zones (or stations) at the same time to speed up the winterizing process.
I’ve read discussions on how it can support only so much current draw and therefore will not be possible to activate more than 2 solenoids at a time, but there’s a simple way this can be accomplished in software. Create a new page where the user can select this special mode of operation.
In this mode, the zones would be grouped in pairs (example 1-2, 3-4, 5 -6, etc.) and when the user would choose RUN, it would turn on zone 1 for 2 seconds, off for .5 second, then turn on zone 2 for 2 seconds, off for .5 seconds, and repeat until the user skips to the next pair. This continuous switching between two zones, while winterizing with a compressor, keeps both valves open while only one solenoid is active at any moment. Of course this is a simple 2 valve solution, but it could be more elaborate, and allow the user to choose how many and which valves to run together. I already do this with a jumper wire on controllers that have wire terminals exposed, and it reduces the time needed to go through all the zones significantly.
The guy who blows out our lines doesn’t use the controller at all. He manually activates the valves. That allows him total control. He often runs two valves at a time because his compressor is strong enough.
Yea, I was thinking the same thing, just do it manually. I assume most techs don’t even have app access. That also gives you a reason to actually look inside the valve box and see if anything has gone wrong through the season.
Now, assuming the valve boxes are totally inconvenient, you could also jumper the 24V+ to the zone wires at the controller, skipping the controller logic. I expect the current load is at turn on, not to hold open, so just stagger the rising edge. Certainly not ideal method though.
When I just blew mine out with a small compressor, I had to blow, recharge compressor, blow again, recharge, next zone blow… So I used the “quick run” and paused to recharge, and then skip to next when ready. When you skip, the controller momentarily opens the currently paused zone for some reason.