Europe/ tosted my 110V Charger, Unit in a deep Coma!

Troubleshooting Sprinklers & Irrigation
21

@jolugo sorry to bother you, but one last question for the sake of Science :wink:

Now that your unit is operational again, would you mind measuring the AC voltage across the transformer or SP / SC terminals while one of the zones is active?

Originally I thought you would need to replace all of the MOVs in order to be compatible with a 30V transformer, but now I wonder if a load from a single active solenoid is sufficient in order to reduce the AC voltage well below the 30V idle voltage.

Thanks,
Gene

22

Hi, I know this is an old post, but kind that something similar happened to me with the rachio 3 :frowning:
I now plug it using the 24 VAC from my old/current rainbird controller and it doesn’t turn on either.
Nothing on the circuit seems broken (by eye at least). However I notice the self resetting fuse, if I got the component correctly (see image), gets quite hot when I plug the device. Does that mean the fuse is broken?
Any idea what replacement alternatives there are for it, maybe @Gene knows? I might need more than one, not easy to get electronics where I live.

20221028_180800 - Copy
20221028_180800 - Copy1816×4032 408 KB

Thanks
Cristian

23

Just a further point of clarification - you are measuring open circuit voltage (30v) which will always read lower when actually powering a device

24

Seems that the fuse is doing it’s job, heating up due to load and shutting down. Something down the line is shoring out, most likely one of the MOVs on the board (not the fuse itself).
If you can get your hands on a can of compressed air (kind that is used for cleaning keyboards and such), you could use it upside down to frost the board and identify the component which is actually damaged (it will be the first one to get hot and clear frost from itself and surrounding area).
This will give you an idea of what I’m talking about:

25

Hi Eugene!
Thanks for the reply and advice. Nice trick I wasn’t aware of.
Honestly, this seems trickier than I originally though :frowning: and it will require quite some effort for me succeed (or at least have the chance of).
I have a relative traveling to US next week and I will ask him to buy me a replacement.

Cheers :slight_smile: