I have the Rainbird 5004PC (5000 - 4 inch popup - part circle).
I'm confused which nozzles I should use.
My PSI is about 35 or 40 (i'm on a well)
1 inch piping
My heads are about 35 feet apart.
5 heads per zone.
I'm using the 2.5 gpm nozzles. Not completely getting "head-to-head" coverage.
I would have thought that the lower the gpm, the farther the head will shoot. But the manual shows the opposite. Should I go with 6.0gpm nozzle for even farther distance? This some how seems wrong since the more water coming out of each nozzle, the more PSI i loose throughout the 5 heads.
I'm not sure how to answer that one, but I'll take a guess.
I do know that I can fill a 5 gallon bucket out of the hose spiget in about 1 - 1 1/2 minutes. But that spiget is coming from a 3/4 inch pipe. However, I know that the piping of my sprinkler system is 1 inch.
My basic question is, does the higher the GPM of the nozzle the farther the water should generally go?
If it takes you a minute to fill a five gallon bucket, then you have a 5 gpm flow. Not a 12.5 gpm flow. Use smaller nozzles in those heads. Even then, you may never get 35 feet distance from them.
Try the Beige MPR nozzles, their for 35' of throw, I personally use the green 30' footers, same scenario, i'm on a well, but only have 4 heads per zone or
2 Full
1 full...2 Halfs
3 Halfs....1 1/3
These numbers will make sense once you read about these nozzles.
What I did that worked well was to hook up the rotors on the garden hose to see if there was enough flow. You can get little adapters from HD that connect pipe thread to hose thread that you can use for this test - they're also handy for other things. Put nozzles in the rotors and tape them to a stake. Nozzle the rotors (try two) for the total flow for the zone; if you need 12 gpm, put two six gpm nozzles in the two rotors and try it. Should give you a better idea of what your supply is capable of and set you at ease (or make you stressed but at least you'll know now).