I’ve previously recommended, what in my opinion is, minimally invasive way to disable the 900 Mhz radio, a blob of solder is all you need:
As far as power, if you have ~24Vac ~1A supply from your old controller, feel free to use that, just be sure not to use 24V + and - terminals on your controller as power input, you’ll blow out the filter inductor if you do, as these terminals are designed for low power output only.
You’d need to cut and spice the terminal from the Rachio power brick with the old supply.
Rachio is driver limited to channels 1 through 11 for 2.4 Ghz Wifi, if you are running into major issues during setup, check to make sure you are not using 12+ on your access point.
My network is a unifi setup and I am using several 2.4GHz channels with 3 APs… 1,6 and 11. All with same credentials. Hopefully it can work out which AP is best for signal.
I have not yet had a look at the Rachio manual, but I am not quite getting the not using 24V supply terminals for + and - as controller input. It should make sense when I look at a manual… but are you suggesting I need to run the rachio off a different supply other than 24VAC?
Besides the power input plug (which is not a terminal by itself), Rahio features two terminals labeled 24VAC + and -.
These are designed to power sensors, such as wireless rain sensor or flow sensor and are not designed to be used for power input to run the controller itself & a number of valves.
If you want to see what happens if you use the termianals to connect the 24VAC supply instead of the power input plug, here (link) is an example.
Thanks… I get it… Only use the connector for power… not the terminals.
I am about to pyll the pin on an order for one off ebay. Looks like I can probably use the power supply from the richdel and disabled the antenna and should eb good to go. Is there any benefit in the oudoor box from Rachio over the food container solution pictured above? Mine would be on an outdoor wall, but under the the roof eaves, so should only get rain in high wind. Already power there. Should be only about 10m from an AP for wifi, but on the other side of brick wall, so will see if that works.
Food container is good if you have sun protection & a good place to secure your power brick (since there doesn’t seem to be enough space for it inside the container). Rachio’s outdoor enclosure is designed to protect the controller and the power brick at the same time while providing a better protection from the Sun’s UV light.
I have ordered a Rachio 3 off ebay. It may take a month or so to get to me in Sydney. I have not been able to work out anywhere I can buy a Rachio enclosure from as there are none on ebay and Amazon/Rachio do not deliver to Australia from what I can see. So I may be stuck going with either a food container or an electrical box of some description.
How good is the wifi in Rachio 3? My phone gets patchy wifi at the location I plan to mount the Rachio. My phone loses Wifi when close to the brick wall I plan to mount to. It is OK a foot or so off it. I may need to put some space between the Rachio and the wall to get better wifi.
Yes, it was sly of them. I guess they found a way to fake the system quote with a custom one containing extra links. I guess it works more often than we would like.