Running multiple valves simultaneously

[codymnelson]

Hey,
I set up some drip zones with pretty low flow. I separated them in order to have flexibility of relative water application so i don't have to change flow rates on drippers to tune everything.  My well pump and pressure regulator aren't super exited about running one low flow zone at a time. The pump needs some flow to keep the seals cool and the pressure regulator is pulsing more than healthy.

My question is, how do I turn on multiple valves simultaneously? This is stated as a feature on the Bluespray website.

If they were all running for the same amount of time i could wire them together, but that defeats the purpose of splitting them up.
 
The only way I can figure out is to have each zone assigned its own program and schedule and then turn off stacking runs.  Having 8 zones to do this seems like it cant be right.  If i want to change the start time I have to edit 8 schedules instead of 1 which is cumbersome.
Can anyone help me with this?
Thank you!

[bluespray_admin]

In order to run multiple zones concurrently, you'd want to set Stack mode (Settings->Operation) to No, then schedule your programs to start at the same time.

Please be careful not to have 1 zone overlapping the same time.  The best way is not to repeat the zones in your programs i.e. if program 1 has Zone 1 in it, program 2 should not.

For example:

1. Program 1 has zones 1, 3, 5, 7 on for 10 min, others 0 min.
2. Program 2 has zones 2, 4, 6, 8 on for 10 min, others 0 min.

[codymnelson]

This makes sense. I set this up as you suggested but i had one more hiccup.  At first i thought i did something wrong because i could only see one scheduled program on the calendar view for that given time. I changed the time of the one schedule a few minutes and then saw that indeed it was there but apparently the calendar cant handle showing concurrent schedules for the same time. Is that correct at this point?
Thanks for your help!

[bluespray_admin]

The calendar view doesn't impose one run on the other well.  But you can see the runs under Today's Runs when the run day comes.

[codymnelson]

So i have been running multiple zones the way you suggested last year and i have found a bug.  I added another master valve to my system for the drip zones this spring. In reality it is a master valve and an input thru a relay to my well pumps VFD that commands a lower pressure set point for the drip irrigation.  I set it up as terminal 24.  It works mostly as intended.

The glitch i have encountered is when i have two or more zones running concurrently using the #24 master i cant have them for different periods of time.  The master valve terminal powers off when the first zone finishes.  The second  zone keeps the zone valve energized but not the#24 master terminal.  I have triple checked that they are both set for the #24 master valve.  It seemed to be a consistent error earlier this spring until i attempted a work around.

If i power cycle the controller when it is in this state, it will snap out of it and energize the #24 master valve correctly for the remainder of the run time.

I had been working around this by forcing some zones to have the same run time and its not working well.  I cant adjust water as needed to different garden beds and keep the water flow high enough to keep my well pump happy. It is short cycling the pump on just one zone and I haven't found a consistent fix.

If these stacked zones showed up better in the calendar it might be helpful as an alternative but as it stands, I'm struggling to juggle splitting up all my drip zones by run time and not overlap and not run into each other on different day of week frequencies.

Last year, running on the original master terminal i didn't have this problem.  I had 5 drip zones all come on at 7 pm, and one ran for 15 minutes, two ran for 30 minutes and two ran for 45 minutes.  This all happened without messing up the other zones.

Let me know what your thoughts are and what you need from me.
Thank you!