Hi, I will attach a closeup of my current rainbird wiring. Is the very left white connection(s) the current hard wired rain sensor? If so, how does this connect to my Rachio generation 2?
Hi @cougartrace, welcome to the club 
It is not quite clear how your current rain sensor is connected to your old controller, but it would be safe to say that it is wired in series, that is the white wire from COM goes off to the rain sensor and the second wire from the rain sensor is connected to an unused (hidden on your picture, probably white or black) wire on your irrigation cable (twist connector or something similar is likely used, connected is probably behind the housing).
What you wish to do is disconnect the irrigation cable from your old controller and disconnect the rain sensor from the controller and the irrigation cable. Hookup the known cables (red through orange) to the Rachio’s terminals 1 through 6. Connect the remaining wire on the irrigation cable (likely white or black) to one of the C terminals on the Rachio. Finally hook up the rain sensor to S1 and SC terminals, like this:
Which white is which in the above connection does not matter, just remember to enable rain sensor on the S1 input within the Rachio software during the setup.
Cheers,
Gene
1 Like
That actually looks like a power connector to me, you will likely find a 24VAC on this connector, and your old controller will turn off if this cable is unplugged. You would need to disregard this connection in favor of the new power supply that comes with your Rachio.
Have you seen the rain sensor outside? If you don’t have one, Rachio can use the local weather data instead, so don’t worry about missing out.
1 Like
Yes i have a rain sensor outside. Prefer not to use it as it hasn’t been accurate anyway.
The rain sensor be connected within your valve box, rather then near the irrigation controller. If you prefer not to use it, you may wish to make sure that the white wire from the irrigation cable is connected directly to the wire bundle from your valves (aka common for all your valves), if the white wire connects to another cable and you see something else connects to the valve bundle, you found your rain sensor connection. In order to disable the rain sensor, you would wish to connect the white wire directly to the valve bundle.
2 Likes
Thanks for all the help