2 Stations at one Time

There are two ways: the first is to do it the ‘hardware’ way: you can insert two zone wires into the same port, and those two zones will always turn on or off together (they are parallel).

The other way is what you’ve already experimented with, the ‘software’ way: you can set each zone as ‘parallel’ zone (uncheck the ‘sequential’ flag). Keep in mind that any ‘parallel’ zone is allowed to run at the same time with other zones. So if you want zones 1 and 2 to run together, 3 and 4 to run together, then you will need two programs, one for zones 1 and 2, give the start time; then a second program for zones 3 and 4, give the start time (this will be some time after the start time of the first program if you don’t want all 4 to run at the same time).

If the two programs have the same start time, then zone 3 will always run together with zones 1 and 2, whether zone 3 is sequential or not. The reason is that ‘sequential’ only work with other sequential zones, any parallel zone will run whenever they are programmed to run. So the only way to separate group 1-2 and 3-4 would be to give the two programs different start times.

Hi,
I’m facing the same problem, I really would like to be able to program easily multiple lines at the same time.
I’d like to use opensprinkler in my farm, and when you’re using a pump you are sometimes bound to open multiple lines at the same time.
Could be a useful new function for next release ?
Thanks a lot !
Have a nice day.

Resurrecting this old thread. I have the exact same issue. My pump is a fixed flow rate and need to run 2-3 stations at once. I use weather adjustment and can’t have a gap between the programs. Is there something that can be done Ray?
I saw another post with someone who edited the cron job to specify the stations and times together. This works on the pi, but I don’t see how to access cron jobs on the embedded 3.0 product.

I am also in need of this feature. I was hoping it would be as easy as just grouping stations together when setting up a program and they would act as one zone, but that does not appear to be the case. I have 20 zones, 18 of which run off of a well. I had to add a pressure tank in order to add some well fed water spigots in our garden, so now it would be much more ideal if I could combine zones in order to minimize well cycling as much as possible. Pairing zones would likely eliminate the cycling almost entirely, but having the ability to still only turn one on at a time is preferred, so wiring them together is not a solution I want to have to go with. Not to mention, finding the right zones to pair would be much more convenient if it was able to be done in the software.

Hello, Ray.

I’m one of those people who want to run 3-4 zones at once. (well, 3 sprinkler zones and 1 start relay).

The inrush current issue is one of the reasons why I commented on this post: https://opensprinkler.com/forums/topic/fresh-install-unable-to-save-the-station-handling-station-delay-setting/#post-76340

By staggering the zones 1 second apart it helps with the inrush current and should theoretically allow us to run more zones at once. The current limit of 5-second minimums starts to lose some efficiency. I also don’t like to start my master pump and run it for 5 seconds into a closed system because it’s quite powerful. I just need a 1-second head start to build up a tiny bit of pressure.

Any chance we can set a minimum for stagger time of something closer to 1 second for zones even if they run in parallel?

In terms of stations, ideally, we could create “logical zones”. For example put zone 1, 2, 3 into logical zone “front yard”, zones 4,5,6 into “backyard” and then take actions on that zone as if it were a single zone, such as starting a master pump or running things in parallel, or adding it to a schedule.

That way we can keep our programs nice and tidy but have better granular control of parallel zones.