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Here is a good tutorial on Irritrol RainDial Programming and Schedules. It discusses how to program the Irritrol RainDial RD600, RD900, RD1200 series of controllers, provides links, videos, templates and guidelines. There’s also a link to the programming guide and a great sheet to fill in when deciding what your program should be.
Irritrol RainDial Programming Guidelines for success: RD600, RD900, RD1200
- Basic terminology: Depending on your model, the timer can control 6, 9 or 12 “stations/valves.” There are three “schedules“, A, B and C. Schedules define the days, run times for each valve and up to three times you want that schedule to start running on a given day. We will define a cycle as what the valves do when a schedule starts; e.g., run station 1 for 10minutes (the run time), then station 2 for 15 minutes, then 3, etc. The cycle always turns on the valves in order starting with #1.
- Note to turn off a start time, you select the time to ‘Off’ by clicking the + button until the time reaches 12:00 and press one more time. That will remove the start time.
- Many times people mistake the AM for PM; the difference is very subtle on the display. This is my only real complaint about the Irritrol RD controllers. Double-check that the current time and the programmed times are correct.
- MOST IMPORTANT THING TO UNDERSTAND: The 2nd start time should never start before the first cycle finishes. The length of a cycle is the sum of all the programmed run times. E.g.,
- If your start time is 7:30AM and 6 valves are programmed to each run 1-hour, then the 2nd start time must be set later than 1:31PM so the cycles do not overlap. It’s common for People to run one cycle in the morning and one in the evening.
- Here’s the calculation:
- 7:30AM start time +
- (1 hour for each valve) x (6 valves) = 6 hours of run time
- Finish time is = 1:30PM.
The 2nd start time must be set after the first one finishes, which would be at 1:31PM or later.
- The RULE: the ‘next’ start time must be set after the previous start time plus the total of the run times of all the valves.
- If you break this rule, the timer may repeat the cycle again, after the first cycle finishes.
- Avoid allowing times to cross midnight (into the next day).
- When using multiple schedules, make sure they will never overlap their schedules at all. e.g., if you have schedule A as a “skip-day” schedule running every other day AND you have schedule B running on Wednesdays, they will eventually both run on Wednesday. Thus, make sure schedule B can run and complete before schedule A runs. (e.g.., set one for mornings and the other for evenings. )
- RECOMMENDATION: Fill out the template shown below before you start – it makes things very easy.
- Convention note: The terms station, valve and zone are considered the same. Each valve has a number associated with it (e.g., 1-6 for an RD600, 1-9 for an RD900.
Important things to understand about the RD600 and other Rain Dial series timers:
- Understand the basics of Irritrol RainDial Programming and Schedules:
- The timer is specifically designed to avoid having more than one valve on at a time. This prevents the transformer from being overloaded so even if you do manage to program it for multiple valves to be on simultaneously, you shouldn’t do that. (Some people do run multiple valves at a time, but it’s not recommended).
- It always turns on valves for the programmed duration in the numerical sequence (1, then 2, then 3…) If 2 doesn’t have any time set for it, then it will be skipped.
- The ABC switch does not choose which schedule to run; it’s only used to program the schedules. Schedule AB&C always run, regardless of the program switch setting. Thus, if you do not want A to run, then you must “un-program it“
- If you don’t want a schedule to run, you must set either all the days in that schedule to off, the run-times to 0 minutes (off) or all start times to off. by putting the switch on A and setting all the start times to off. (Note that the ‘Off’ setting can be found by clicking the + button one click after 12:00.)
- When the schedule starts, it goes to the first valve with time-to-run and turns it on and waits. When that run-time duration has finished, it goes to the next valve and runs it for the time assigned. Thus, only one valve runs at a time.
- Help with skip days: This page gives you a good description of the skip days feature…
Irritrol RainDial PROGRAMMING GUIDES, Templates
For help programming the RainDial RD600-1200 series sprinkler/irrigation controllers, see the following Irritrol RainDial programming guide and then review the manuals above.
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- Irritrol RainDial Programming Guide – template
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- Irritrol Rain Dial Manual Sprinkler Controller Programming Guide – Overview
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- Irritrol Rain Dial Sprinkler Controller Programming Guide – Example and Programming Tips
Here’s a PDF of the Irritrol Rain Dial programming template. guide, and example template.
Here’s a PDF of just the blank template.
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I only have 2 zones front and back I have set my RD600R on B to run zone 1 at 3:00 for 1 hour and zone 2 at 4:01 for 1 hour. However what happens is zone 1 runs or 1 hour zone 2 runs for 1 hour then zone 1 runs again do 1 hour and zone 2 runs for an hour. I want each zone to run for only 1 hour what can cause that?
thanks Bob
Hi Bob,
That’s almost always a programming error. It’s likely that something is programmed that you don’t expect, or you have start times overlapping so that the 2nd one starts before the zones running on the first one have finished. Try a factory reset and reprogram from scratch; that usually gets it. if not, let me know and we’ll get it figured out.
Regards,
Brian
Hi. Brian
I did an erase of program on “B” before programming on B. Does a program an “A” or “C effect the program on “B”? There is an old program on A.
Thanks
Bob
One other thing, if you do a factory reset, it will have default programming in schedule a that consist of running every station every day of the week for 10 minutes starting at 7 AM. So if you don’t want that, you’ll have to delete it out.
To answer your question, if you program a or C, it should not impact B. But if the schedules overlap, they will make B not run when you think it should.
It’s also possible that there’s a problem with the programming switch or selector switch that is causing it to program a different schedule than you’re expecting it to. That’s something I can fix if you think that might be the case.