Global restrictions vs. Program restrictions

Follow

Bill

May 21, 2017 21:56

I am still becoming familiar with this great controller, but have a serious concern I found today.

I have a program all setup and it has been running (in test.. not controlling valves yet), the last few days.

Seems to be running ok.

My watering restrictions that I am trying are one day a week (Monday).

I have been using the Global setting for watering restrictions to Monday, and the zone times seem to be fairly close to what I have been using with my old manual timer.  The total program time was 1 hour 50 minutes... seemed reasonable for a combination of rotors and drippers.

Today I tried using the one day watering restriction on the program, and cleared the restriction from the global setting... and WOW WOW WOW!!!

My total program time jumped from 1 hr., 50 min.  to 12 hours and 56 minutes!!!!! This can HARDLY be correct!!!

I checked all my zone times and they all jumped WAY up from the global restriction of one day to the program restriction of one day...

I also changed it back to my original global restriction setting, then back to program restriction setting and the HUGE difference was still there.

I am running beta 4.0.900 so don't know if this is a bug or not.

Am I doing something wrong or misinterpreting something about the watering restriction settings?

 

0

• 

  RainMachine Nicholas May 22, 2017 06:34

  Bill, if you use the Web UI (beta) when setting up a "Selected days" program, it will list the watering times for each day it will run. The zones suggested times are *daily* if you don't water in a day the missing day watering time will be added to the next run.

  0

  Comment actions Permalink
• 

  Bill May 22, 2017 18:41 (Edited May 22, 2017 18:42)

  Hello Nicholas...

  So to verify for me, for instance....

  Setup is Program A has zone 1 programmed with adaptive time, all zone parameters are setup, weather is being updated.

  Three different scenarios:

  A) No restrictions set, Zone 1 is calculated by RM to run for 10 minutes every day and runs +-10 minutes depending on weather conditions.

  B) Under global settings for watering restrictions, PROGRAM 1 is restricted to Monday only, Zone 1 (no restrictions) and runs for +-10 minutes on Mondays depending on weather conditions.

  C) Under program 1 settings,  PROGRAM 1 has NO restrictions, but Zone 1 is restricted to Monday only and will run for 70 minutes +- weather conditions.

    So using restrictions for the zone adds up the zone's daily watering time, where using global restrictions does not change the zone's watering time?

  This is what I am seeing.  Is this correct?  Why do watering restrictions for program runs not total up the zone run time like it does for zone restriction ?   (does this make sense?)

  Thanks for your help!  I am just trying to understand how the run times are calculated.

  1

  Comment actions Permalink
• 

  Kenneth Jordan June 21, 2017 13:24

  What was the RM customer support response to this?

  0

  Comment actions Permalink
• 

  RainMachine Nicholas June 21, 2017 14:23

  First I'd like point out the in Programs screen the days that you select aren't "restrictions", we view this as program "frequency" not a restriction.

  The frequency settings are taken into account when suggesting a watering time. Global restrictions are NOT taken into account.

  This is the current behavior of RainMachine when dealing with restrictions.

  0

  Comment actions Permalink
• 

  Kenneth Jordan June 21, 2017 14:55

  Hello Nicholas.  Your 2nd sentence raises another question.  So, for clarification,

  If I have a program that is setup to water on odd numbered days (frequency) and a global restriction that only has Friday selected.  Does that mean that only even numbered Friday's will be watered?  Or, are you saying that global restriction is not used in this manner?  If not, when is it used?

  Thank you.

  0

  Comment actions Permalink
• 

  RainMachine Nicholas June 21, 2017 17:31

  Global restrictions apply to all programs. If you have Friday restricted, no watering will take place on Friday no matter what frequency you have set for programs.

  What I was trying to explain is that global restrictions don't affect "suggested" watering times when you setup a program.

  0

  Comment actions Permalink
• 

  Kenneth Jordan June 21, 2017 17:44 (Edited June 21, 2017 17:54)

  UPDATE:

  Nicholas has informed me that the exclamation mark on the 23rd indicates the restriction.  I still believe it would be clearer to include something in the text.  But, to be fair, the restriction is "visible".

  ----

  Ok, than I will submit a request to address what I'd consider either a bug (if it's not what developers intended), or confusing at best.

  I have a program now that has exactly what I asked above (odd day watering frequency) and a global restriction of "No Friday's".  This upcoming Friday is June 23rd and the main screen shows the "Next run on Fri June 23 2017" (see screenshots).  If global restrictions do prevent watering on certain days than that should be reflected in the main screen.  I'd expect the main screen to say "Next run on Sun June 25 2017 (due to restriction)" or something similar.

  
  
  

  0

  Comment actions Permalink
• 

  RainMachine Nicholas June 21, 2017 18:44 (Edited June 21, 2017 18:44)

  The graph will show that program wants to run and how much but it's restricted doing so. But maybe next run display should be smarter.

  0

  Comment actions Permalink

Please sign in to leave a comment.