Multiple Start Times
It would be very helpful to have multiple start times for a single program.
Each zone has different watering needs, which is why the plants in that zone are on the same valve. Adding multiple start times to a program allows us to create one program to meet the needs of that zone.
PLEASE consider adding this necessary feature - it would make programming zones according to their unique watering needs so much more intuitive and easy.
Thank you for your consideration,
Chris
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Yes, exactly!! Please!
The prior irrigation controllers I have owned have all allowed this. This allows for much better organization of the programs.
Each zone has it's own watering requirements. For example, our garden zone gets watered 4 times daily in the summer. I would wish to be able to have a single program for the garden zone, with 4 start times each day.
Our shrub zone gets watered twice daily in summer.
Our cactus zone only gets watered every other or third day.....etc....
The way the rainmachine is set up it requires far too many programs in order to accomplish this, and organization is very difficult esp for seasonal changes.
I think it would be beneficial even if we could not have multiple zones in a program, it would be preferable to have 1 zone per program with multiple start times (instead or only 1 start time with multiple zones). That is how irrigation plans are laid out, by the watering requirements of each zone - many of which require more than 1 watering per day.
Please consider adding this feature, it is really important to organizing zones and making seasonal changes. It would allow 1 program for each zone for each season with much better organization.
Thank you for your consideration!
Chris
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I'm just another user, so my 2 cents probably isn't worth 2 cents. But, I think the vast majority of users have zero intention to irrigate in that manner because I bet the controller is used for grass yards with a few bushes by the vast majority of users. Those users simply want to water every zone for some amount of time and that's it. I think another issue is really terminology. Don't think of the "programs" as all encompassing schedules for zones. A program is really just a single watering session. That session will include all the zones you want to water at that time and how long each zone should water at that time. For your garden zone for instance, you want 4 sessions so you need 4 programs.
I haven't tried this, but one possible configuration option would be to use the cycles and soak function. If your watering needs can work with just putting x minutes between waterings you could create a Garden program with say 4 cycles starting at 7am with a 180 minutes of soak/delay between cycles. That might get you a single program that waters that zone 4 times a day with 3 hours in between. Not quite as flexible as setting specific start times for each cycle, but it might work for you.
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With a 12 zone controller - think about it. 12 zones, multiple times per day per zone, 4 seasons - it gets to be a mess!
Every other irrigation controller I've owned has supported multiple start times per program, I just don't understand why this one doesn't (and was quite surprised after I purchased it).
Your idea of trying to use the cycle and soak function is an interesting one, thank you for that input. The only issue I see is I'm not sure the rainmachine will go onto the next program if it's in between a cycle/soak so it may hold up all the other programs (for the entire day possibly).
Thanks for the input.
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I would have to agree with Cliflyri. I would like a program that runs 12 zones once 1 hour before sunrise and once 1 hour after sunset on my allowed watering days.
Of course, I can copy the first program using the app, but when I need to make an adjustment to one of the zones, I must replicate that same adjustment to keep the second program in sync. That's not a big deal with 2 programs, but it can be tedious if you have a more complicated set up like Cliflyri.
I have tried using the cycles and soak option, but the soak time is limited to 300 minutes. Even if this was not a limitation, this still would not allow a schedule based on both sunrise and sunset at the same time. Not to mention if it impacts other program runs during the soak time.
Allowing multiple start times would be the easiest way to accomplish the above set up and prevent maintaining duplicate programs.
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Exactly, I have had other controllers that offered this.
another option is a "daily repeat" of the schedule - asking how many times to repeat the schedule and at what interval.
Pretty please! As our landscape grows and we make more and more of an investment in our gardens and fruit trees, we really need multiple start times per day.
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Even though there are some work-arounds to get this done, I think a feature like this would be very beneficial.
My main use-case would be when I re-seed an area of my garden. I need to keep the soil moist so I'd love to see an option to run the zones i.e. once per hour for 5 minutes.
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Cliflyri: May I offer a solution that I believe does exactly what is being driven by related posts. I leave it to you to judge how easy this is, but it does allow the irrigation controller to continue to monitor how much water is being used in total by zone, tracks weather to make adjustments up and down for temperture and wind impact on evaporation, and by virtue of being RainMachine being a smart controller, it handles seasonal adjustments by virture of monitoring the weather.
Easiest first:
Multiple start times per zone: First, complete all of the zone information requested in the program. Be sure to know how much water your zone puts out per minute, and what type of sprinkler head, drip, or bubbler (other choices are available) you have associated with that zone. Then, create a program(s) that includes this and set the time you want that program to begin [Example: start at 7:00 am, you can adjust the watering span of time to whatever you wish]. Create a second program for this zone that starts are a later time [Example: start at 5:00 pm, you can adjust the watering span to time to whatever you wish]. This simplified program gives you watering 2 times per day, allows the irrigation controller to adjust for weather conditions by by increasing, decreasing, skipping, or postponing the watering cycle.
You can get further control of the irrigation zones by adding restrictions such as: do not water on given days (perhaps you do yardwork and don't want to work in freshly watered garden areas, do not water between certain hours, and more. Your preferences can be zone programmed quite dramatically AND you keep the "smart" irrigation system doing what it can for you within YOUR parameters.
Here is how I might address your needs and continue to get the value from the irrigation controller. FIRST, identify each zone by valve number and accurately complete the zone information.
A1) I WANT TO WATER ZONE TWO DAILY AT 7:00am AND NOT FOR MORE THAN 20 MINUTES. Create a program selecting which days I want the program to be active DAILY, the fixed time of day that I want the controller to consider running the program 7:00am; A2) create restrictions which will discontinue the watering of that zone and, if necessary, carry watering forward to the next watering session DO NOT WATER BETWEEN 7:20am AND MIDNIGHT, DO NOT WATER FROM MIDNIGHT TO 6:59am.
B1) I WANT TO WATER MY ZONE TWO DAILY AT 5:00pm, AND NOT FOR MORE THAN 20 MINUTES. Create a program selecting which days I want the program to be active DAILY, the fixed time of day that I want the controller to consider running the program 5:00pm; B2) create restrictions which will discontinue the watering of that zone and, if necessary, carry watering forward to the next watering session DO NOT WATER BETWEEN 5:20pm AND MIDNIGHT, DO NOT WATER FROM MIDNIGHT TO 4:59pm.
IF you have enabled the irrigation controller to consider weather adjustment capabilities, your watering plan will be "considered" as programmed. I say considered as the actual amount of water required will be augmented by the irrigation controller because of ground slope, evaporation, type of vegitation, type of soil and water retention characteristics, and more. I have made an educated guess that you purchased a smart irrigation controller because you wanted the correct amount and minimum amount of water used to maintain your vegitation.
I hope this is helpful to puts you on more amicable terms with your RainMachine irrigation controller. I found that doing my initial setup using my PC gave me a bigger picture of the components that I would be considering in the zone identificadtion and program processes. Once I have a grasp of the flexibility of the system, using my cellphone remains the only mobile tool that I use, and then mostly to turn on each zone and inspect for necessary repairs to valves, sprinkler heads, drips, and lines.
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Mark Morgan: I understand your slope needs, I too have a western facing slope, 35 degrees, in Southern California. Activate the cycle and soak option in the programming, and then optional set a fixed cycle time. You can change both the number of cycles and the length of soak time per program. Set up "cycle and soak" to water 12 cycles with a 48 minute delay between cycles. Set the days of the week you want the program active. Set the time you want the schedule to start (or say sunrise). That should have the effect of, begin watering at sunrise, water for 4 minutes, delay for 55 minutes, ... to a total of 12 4 minute cycles.
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Sebastian: I just reseeded my fescue lawn and tried, with success, the following programming. Create a temporary new program, lets call it SEED BED; assign a fixed water amount of time (5 minutes per hour for 12 hours = 60 minutes total). Set up "cycle and soak" to water 12 cycles with a 55 minute delay between cycles. Set the days of the week (or daily) you want the program active. Set the time you want the schedule to start (or say sunrise). That should have the effect of, begin watering at sunrise, water for 5 minutes, delay for 55 minutes, ... to a total of 12 5 minute cycles.
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BB: Perhaps consider programming this way. First, accurately input the requirements of your vegitation by zone. Create a program (ex: MORNING) and define/fix how much time per day you want that zone to water OR let the program make that determination. Set the program watering time to begin 1 hour before sunrise (or you can set the program to be completed before sunrise if that is closer to your objective). Create a second program for the evening/afternoon (ex: EVENING), assign all desired zones to that program, set it to complete watering by 1 hour after sunset.
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I do not work for RainMachine and I rarely look at this communication board unless trying to answer a question for myself. I hope that I was able to help in practical ways to maximize the SMART features of your RainMachine in both easy and valuable approaches to your questions. I have used RainMachine for several years and continue to learn how to maximize its utility by seeing questions such as yours. Best of experiences to you all.
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Srizzuto91 -Thank you for your suggestions, we appreciate the help however we have already tried that option.For our situation it results in far too many programs. The inexpensive rainbird controller that we have offers multiple start times per program as do many other irrigation controllers on the market. We have had over the years perhaps 5 or 6 controllers at different times and ALL except the ranmachine have offered this feature.We have 8-12 zones running, several of which need to be watered more than once per program particularly in the spring and summer. Having more than one program for a zone makes the programs area a mess, and is completely unnecessary when all we want to do is run the exact same program at an additional time.Add to this that the interface offers no way to re-arrange or "group" programs and this means that when we add a new time for an existing zone it gets added as a new program and is not even next to the old program in the interface.If the interface offered multiple start times we would have only 1 program per zone per season, which would be fantastic. We could have zone 1-summer, zone 1 winter and activate or deactivate as the seasons change. With what you are recommending, we end up with numerous unnecessary programs all of which become too much to keep track of. This requires editing or deleting programs and if we are going to do that, it is just as easy to change the much simpler program on a controller with multiple start times. It is really much easier, and we wish this "fancy" controller has such basic functionality.Add multiple start times, and also offer a way to re-arrange or group the programs into folders (i.e. summer, winter) and this would be a top of the line controller. As it is, it has tons of potential but seems to be designed by users with more computer programming experience than real world garden and landscape experience.Yes, we have had a love/hate relationship with this controller. We really want to love it, but it has such (unnecessary) shortcomings that seem like they should be easily fixed/addressed yet no one has addressed them. Inexpensive controllers have more functionality in programming which seems silly, and we find using the inexpensive controllers to offer more effective and clearer programming which is easier to maintain.The simple addition of multiple start times per controller solves many issues for users with many zones and different watering needs.The extra step of allowing re-arranging or even grouping of the programs would put this controller over the top and make it beyond excellent. So far after years it appears neither issue has been addressed.
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Srizzuto91:
Thank you for attempting to come up with a "solution" to the lack of features in the Rain Machine firmware. However this suggestion would have me watering my lawn in direct sun in the hottest times of the day in the high desert with temps in the 100F range. The true solution would be for Rain Machine to add more functionality to their product or dump it and get a more feature rich product like Rachio
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