I’ve installed a Rachio 3 to replace a Rainbird 1260i. The yard has 11 zones, the incoming cable has 12 strings, one not used (purple).I’ve connected the 11 wires to the new controller, zones 1-11. The second cable connected to the Rainbird has 4 strings, red and green are stripped and only red was connected in the old controller. I’ve connected the red wire to the M connector on the new controller.Power plug connected and connected to Wifi, app works and can manually start zones, led starts blinking however nothing happens in the yard. I’ve been reading several of the posted discussions and there’s commons mentioned everywhere…am I missing something here?
The old controller had the 11 zone wires extended with 2 parallel wires, 1 going into the connector plug that plugs into the controller’s wiring plug and the second into a plug that wasn’t connected to anything. Same thing for the wire connection of the cable that I assume coming from main valve.
Adding some pictures of the before/after for reference.
@Sander - what is missing is the C(ommon) wire connection.
Many times a white colored wire is used for the common wire.
The close up of the red wire shows that it was connected to a wire labeled station 7 in the Rainbird wiring.
I’d move the red wire in the M terminal to terminal 11 where a white wire is and move the white wire from terminal 11 to a C terminal.
If that doesn’t work, then an ohm meter can determine which wire is the common wire. Or an inspection of a valve box to verify the two wire colors going to the solenoid will get the common wire down to one of two choices.
@DLane, The wonder of reading! Thanks for pointing out the text on the wire…I was too focused on the colors that I didn’t pay attention to the text. I traced back the wire that the white one was connected to and it’s labeled COMMON.Swapped the wires and changed the order of the zones to match original, based on the labels on the original wiring. Guess there’s no main valve in the system.Anyway the problem is solved, all 11 zones work well. Picture of zone 7. THANKS for clarifying the common “mystery”!
