Just to be clear, the third point (I can use the Manual (One Zone) feature to turn any zone on) indicates that the wiring and valves are all working fine and the problem is either the user doing something stupid or that the controller is broken (or there isn't enough power to drive more than 1 valve at a time, but fresh batteries should have ruled that out). I'm hoping that I'm doing something stupid as that will be easier and less expensive than getting a broken controller fixed.

grey,
Some clarification of details are warranted in my view. How many zones (auto-valves) is your controller operating? How many and what type of sprinklers does each zone have? Your controller has 3 programs and 4 start times with each start time a max duration of 4 hrs. That means it can cycle through zones 12 times. Zones do not go on more than one zone at a time but cycle through the zones you have selected for that start time one after another for the same duration for that specific start time. Do not start another time start for a time that the first start time has already covered. If you give more details of what you would like to do, I can give an example. Or even better Mike could, he is better at this than I could ever be. JMHO Aloha

Actually, I think the key here is that the zones are started sequentially after each previous zone's duration rather than all starting simultaneously. I thought I had remembered being able to run all the zones at the same time, but reading what you wrote prompted me to re-read the manual again and it makes clear.

So if I setup program A, start time 1 for 9AM, and set the duration for each of the 6 valves for 2 hours, I should expect the following:

1) At 9AM valve 1 opens.
2) At 11AM valve 1 closes and valve 2 opens.
3) At 1PM valve 2 closes and valve 3 opens.
4) At 3PM valve 3 closes and valve 4 opens.
5) At 5PM valve 4 closes and valve 5 opens.
6) At 7PM valve 5 closes and valve 6 opens.
7) At 9PM valve 6 closes and the program is complete.

My defective memory was expecting the following:

1) At 9AM valves 1-6 open.
2) At 11AM valves 1-6 close.

I'll run a test with short run times in the morning for 2 of the zones to make sure it's working (I can't technically water on even days of the month, but I'm sure I can get away with running a quick test), but I think it's safe to assume that the problem falls into the user doing (or at least expecting) something stupid :).

But to answer your question, I have 4 valves hooked up to the controller. Each is connected to a regular garden hose which has a regular lawn sprinkler (I'm using 4 Orbit H2O-Six on Tripod sprinklers).

As I said above, my application is just to use the controller for a temporary setup when we have a drought so I can keep the lawn in somewhat reasonable shape or I'm away on vacation and unable to water my vegetable garden. We don't have a permanently installed lawn sprinkler system, drip hoses for our shrubs, etc.

I bought this controller a few years ago because none of the cheap single zone controllers could handle the (I think) pretty common case of having to water on even or odd days of the month depending on your street address. There are plenty that can do every other day, but that doesn't work well at the end of a month with 31 days because the controller would end up transitioning from odd days to even days (or vice versa) after the month transition - it would go from days 27, 29, and 31 to days 2, 4, 6... at which point I'd end up with the possibility of fines for not following the town's water ban rules. It's interesting that none of the local hardware stores that sell controllers (the local hardware stores just sell the cheap single zone controllers) have any that can actually comply with the town's water ban rules and the employees gave me one of those blank stares when I asked them if they had anything that could :). I explained the problem of transitioning from odd to even days to them, but it didn't seem to help...

Thanks for your reply - I think I'm all set now.

I ran a quick Manual (All Zones) test this morning with each of the 4 zones I'm using set to run for 1 minute and the controller went through them sequentially just fine. Clearly my memory was faulty :).

grey,

Great to hear your system is working properly. Has anybody been ticketed for watering on the wrong day? I am sure that it is more important that you are not watering every day than watering on the wrong day. Good Luck with that. Aloha

Thanks. I have no idea if they've ticketed anyone or not and I certainly see plenty of people blatantly ignoring the water ban by either watering on the wrong day or watering every day. But it's not that difficult to adhere to the rules of the water ban and it's in place for a reason (naturally, the real reason is that the town has let too much development happen without increasing the capacity of the water processing facility).

grey,

Interesting comment. The object is to use less water not necessarily water on the days assigned you. You had difficulty following the rules with your controller. Others may not be as diligent as you. The difficulty is really to police the policy. If they were seriously having a major water problem (shortage), they would ticket people which is a form of water tax to people who don't follow the rules. Then they would require you to have only Zero-scape landscaping or be fined. When it gets really bad they raise the rates where only wealthy homeowners have landscaping or the rates escalate rapidly with the more water you use (same result). The municipalities have many cards to play including have other homeowners turn in the outlaw irrigators and get a water credit. What would you do if you were running a City's water supply. That was why recycled water was created. What do others think. How should water purveyors get consumers to conserve water? JMHO Aloha

I wasn't having any difficulty at all in following the rules. I simply sought out a controller that had the ability to follow the town's rules. Like I said, I have no idea if they routinely ticket people or not in my town, but I'd prefer not to find out the hard way by breaking the rules, especially when it's pretty simple to follow them. It's as simple as that.

grey,

Thanks for the straight forward answer. Aloha