Let me know if you have any questions. There are some older answers to similar questions on the forums (and I answered some of them) but this has changed… loading a repeater has been pretty stable for a while
add_filter('acf/load_value/name=repeater_field_name', 'preload_repeater_field_name', 10, 3);
function preload_repeater_field_name($value, $post_id, $field) {
// $value will === NUL for new post
if ($value !== NULL) {
return $value;
}
$value = array_fill(0, 20, array());
return $value;
}