Nick – We do some manual watering from time to time. Our main water distribution line has some points on it that just have a hose bib – no valve. So to do the manual watering we only need to pressurize the main line. The master valve is on Station 1 and I’ve set a “dummy zone” on Station 3, but there is no valve wired to Station 3. The settings for Station 3 are Use Master and Ignore Rain.
To enable manual watering up to now, we’ve just turned Station 3 on with the iOS app for OpenSprinkler – turn it off when done. Now that I’ve learned about the Program Switch feature, I’ll add the switch to Sn2 and make (and disable) a simple program (set as Program 2) to turn on Station 3 for 30 or 60 minutes. Then a simple press of the switch will pressurize the main line and we can hand water or set a hose and sprinkler and know when it will shut off.
Since our automatic watering is mostly done before dawn or during evening hours, and our manual watering is done during the day time won’t cause any interference with the normal schedule of the other programs.
Just some thought,
Brian