After several months waiting for parts to arrive I have finally managed to set up my first Zone.
I haven't set up any schedule yet, I've just been testing with watering manually. My sone is set up with about 45 8lph drippers to water tomato plants. When I start the system up the pump starts and water comes out of the first drippers after about 30-60 seconds the pump starts labouring and shuts down.
Initially I ran one main pipe down the side of the poly tunnel with spurs coming off for each row of plants and each spur has around 6 drippers going to the plants with micro pipe. ( 1 micro pipe T'd off to 2 drippers.

I then tried running another line of main pipe down the centre of the tunnel connecting the spurs and ends together basically creating a large loop. The results seem to be the same though after a short while the pump seems to labour, some times it will run a bit longer but it really seems to be chugging. The end farthest from the pump seems to be getting water but slowly.

Any suggestions for what I could be doing wrong. The are no height issues, all the pipes are installed at ground level and the pump is about 4 ft from the ground. I was careful to cap all the pipes before starting to make sure no dirt could get inside.

HI Alan
It sounds like you might need more drippers or a return pipe back to the tank with a valve to control the return flow, I think the pro pump delivers about 12.5litres per minute free flow 750L / hour, you have 45 drippers @ 8lph = 360lph.

Regards Paul

Hi Alan
45 drippers should be fine, sounds like there is some other blockage in the system. Try and isolate it by removing components. Start with the distribution pipe, so water is just coming out of the valves, then remove the valves, try again etc. Once you get free flow on the pump you'll have identified where the block is.

Hi Paul and Chris,
Thank you for the advice, I was hoping you were going to say you've missed this special setting. Fighting through 8ft tomato plants and trying to pull these joints apart is not going to be easy.
I spent several hours on Sunday adding a making the system into a loop and that didn't seem to make any difference and if it was a blockage I would have expected this extra pipe would have bypassed it.
I will try and nock up illustration of layout.

Hi Alan - don't worry too much about the loop itself, you just need to disconnect the loop from the valves to remove any pressure. If there's still a problem, then the blockage is further "upstream", potentially the valves not opening.

The image I uploaded was the original layout ( Excuse the terrible drawing, I'm a Gardner ).
The black lines are the amin 13mm LDPE pipe, the Red lines are 4mm micro pipe and they are connected to the pump with the original Watemate hose.
The micro pip comes out of the LDPE pipe on a single line that is the "T'd" off to 2 drippers.
When this didn't work I added a second line of LDPE pipe running all the way down the right hand side and joined each end all the way down like in the 2nd image.

I guess I could also try adding it to Zone 2 and see if its any different. I was going to make a similar loop for the other side of the tunnel for my peppers with 4lph drippers, but held off until I got it working.

The "wet zone / pipework" is really up to you; every situation is different. We can help you troubleshoot the equipment itself, ie control unit, valves and pump. Try and isolate any fault by removing all your pipework from the equipment and running it "open".

I've just disconnected everything from the system and run the pump only. If I run it for 60 seconds it will fill my 10l watering can. If I connect the pump to the irrigation pipe directly ( without the valves in place ) the pump still seems to start of ok and then gets slower. And slower until it stops.

So that means it's not the solenoid valves causing the issue. So it's either the pump or my pipes.

Any suggestions?

Have a look at the high pressure cut out feature of the pump; it's on our docs link, and in the manual that comes with the pump.