I recently installed a gen 1 Rachio system and when switching over the wiring, I discovered that I had a Hunter Mini-Clik Rain sensor installed on my house. The sensor was hooked into my old Toro controller with a red wire and a white wire. I transferred the red and white wires to the yellow sensor ports on the Iro. After doing this, I pushed the top of the sensor to simulate rain occurring, and in the Rachio app, the device status shows “rain sensor deactivated.” Judging from the rain sensor manual, pushing the top of the sensor should activate the rain sensor, not deactivate it.
I tried flipping the red wires around in the yellow connectors, but was still receiving the same result. I then put the red wire in the first yellow connector and the white wire in the common connector. I tested this by turning on my first zone and pushing down the top of the rain sensor and this caused the zone to shut off immediately, which is what is supposed to happen. My concern is that in my device updates section, it shows the “rain sensor activated” message when I push the sensor and the zone shits off, but then it immediately says “device status power cycle.” This does not seem normal to me, but I can’t get the rain sensor to function properly any other way. Can you please assist on how I should be setting this up?
Sounds like you might be wiring up the Normally Open wire lead; the Rachio controller requires the Normally Closed wire lead.
You mention 2 red wires and a white wire; could you post some photos of your wiring here so we could review? I bet if you connect the second red and white into the yellow terminals, it will take care of the power cycles.
Thanks for the reply @emil . I may have mistyped in my original post; I currently have one read and one white wire for my rain sensor. I looked at the diagram you posted and my rain sensor only has two wires coming out of the bottom of it, I do not see the middle wire for the “normally open lead”. Here is a picture of how it was hooked up to my old Toro controller:
And this is how I originally hooked it up to my Iro, which caused the sensor not to function properly. When activating the test function, it would show the sensor as deactivated vs. activated.
As a recap, here is what I have tried with the results of each:
Red in R1, white in R2: When performing the test function as outlined in the mini-clik manual, the Rachio app shows the sensor as deactivated when the sensor is pushed, should show activated
White is R1, Red in R2: Same result as above
Both Red and White in R1: Device didn’t recognize rain sensor
Red in R1, White in Common: When pushing the test function on the rain sensor, the zone shut off immediately, which is what should happen. The device status however shows the sensor as activated and then that the device had to power cycle.
The sensor was installed prior to me buying the house, so I can’t 100% vouch for the wiring. Any other suggestions to get this working properly would be greatly appreciated.
