Gardena C1000 irrigation controller and automatic 6 way distributor

This is in two parts, the programmable (after a fashion) solenoid valve - a C1000 controller, and an automatic water distributor to sequentially distribute water out of six separate hose outlets.

Distributor on the left, controller on the right. The controller is about two years old, and looks like it's  been discontinued.

Distributor with assorted hose attachments and Y-connectors to double up on some irrigation runs. It works on a quite clever pressure operated ratchet system to cycle through the 6 outlets.

It works, but one issue is when you reprogram the controller it can get out of sequence with the distributor, at which point you don't know where you are... I've got one run which easily gets waterlogged, so I give that a short 1 minute session, and another run exposed to sun which I give 8 minutes. It's not useful when these mix up.

Another issue is water pressure - if there are too many heads in a run, you don't get coverage.

Update 2015/10/14:

The issue is that I presently have 4 irrigation runs, and six outlets. Trying to skip outlets isn't obvious, and having too short a watering duration can cause problems if the run doesn't pressurize enough so that the distributor "clicks" over to the next outlet. What is now set up on the distributor is that the spare outlets are "twinned" via Y hose connectors, and the minimum duration is two minutes.

The watering schedule is now:

Outlet        Area             Start      Duration
    1            Tomatoes     03h00    5 min
    2            Chilis           04h00    2 min
    3            Vegetables   05h00    8 min
    4            Youngberry  06h00    5 min
    5            Tomatoes     07h00    5 min
    6            Vegetables   08h00    8 min

Set for every two days, or Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat - skipping Wed, Fri, Sun.

Things are now better, and the watering cycle completes predictably. [Except yesterday 2015/10/15, when an end cap blew off one of the irrigation runs - will check on Saturday to see how it goes.]

Remaining fine tuning is that 08h00 for the final run might be a bit late. There are still some coverage issues, and perhaps an additional separate run could be set up for the vegetables to split the number of spray heads.

Update 2015/10/21:

Modified irrigation layout (see Micro irrigation) so the schedule needs to change. Additionally, every two days means that - in the above, the watering day after Monday was in fact Wednesday, today.

Here's the modification:

Outlet        Area             Start      Duration
    1            Tomatoes     03h00    5 min
    2            Chilis           04h00    2 min
    3            Veggies 1     05h00    4 min
    4            Youngberry  06h00    3 min
    5            Veggies 2     07h00    9 min
    6            Veggies 1     08h00    5 min

Update 2016/08/22:

Changed battery - the last to fail out of three controllers - all of which lasted a bit more than three years. When you lose power, you lose the configuration. This is why you need to write this stuff down!

This time it's a Duracell, The others are Eveready alkalines.

Update 2017/01/01:

Have had problems with distributor over last few weeks - missing cycles on irregular basis. Looks like grit and dust got into the mechanism, so disassembled it.

Didn't look too bad inside, but cleaned up and reassembled. On testing, it worked more smoothly but cycled right past one outlet. I need to work out what's going on - more accurately, how the thing actually works.

Because conditions are dry and hot, purchased another distributor, which is working just fine.

I've also added another irrigation area, making six in all (rather than the five I had), so took the opportunity of setting up a new control schedule:

Here's the modification:

Outlet        Area             Start      Duration
    1            Asparagus     03h00    8 min
    2            Grape Vine   04h00    8 min
    3            Veggie Plot   05h00    8 min
    4            Tomatoes      06h00    4 min
    5            Chilis            07h00    4 min
    6            Youngberry   08h00    3 min