Single Zone causes Rachio to disconnect from Wifi

[bikedude]

I am a new Rachio user. I hooked up a Generation 1, 8 zone system (only uses zones 1-6) just the other day and have been trying to dial it in.

Each time I test it out or run a schedule, the last zone will cause the Rachio to disconnect from Wifi and not allow it to turn off the zone. So the other day after running my first morning schedule, I woke up and realized that the trouble zone (zone 6) was still watering a couple hours after it was supposed to stop and the wifi light was blinking amber or red.

I had to power cycle the rachio to get it to shut off. This has happened every single time I have tested out this zone by itself too. Every other zone works perfectly and I can control it from any device flawlessly.

Any ideas?

[franz]

@bikedude This sounds like a bad solenoid or a wiring issue, somewhat similar to this topic below.

If you send wiring pictures to support@rachio.com and reference this topic they should be able to help troubleshoot.

Replacement says it's watering, but it's not

I helped a friend with a similar intermittent valve problem. He had a Rainbird ESP and it wouldn’t activate the valves some of the time. Come to find out that after a rain or a watering cycle his common wire was shorting out due to moisture in the wire nuts. It would also show the fault light on the ESP. I don’t know but I would think that the Iro has a fault circuit so that if a valve shorts it doesn’t take the Iro out with it. That could cause the reboot of the Iro or other behaviors. Just a f…

[bikedude]

Thanks for the feedback!

So I have continued to trouble shoot a little bit and what is happening is that when the faulty cycle activates, the valve in the sprinkler box starts making a weird sound unlike any of the other sounds. It sounds like some electrical stuff inside the valve is malfunctioning. All the other valves for the different zones sound normal.

So my next step will be to determine if the valve is faulty or the electrical current being sent to the valve is faulty. It appears as though the wires are a complete mess in there, but maybe that’s just how it is supposed to be.

[brkaus]

Disconnect the wire from the solenoid in the box, to rule out any wiring short.

Its probably the valve pulling too much current causing the controller to loose it’s mind.

[bikedude]

Well, as long as I don’t run that zone the other zones seem fine. Are you saying that I might be able to get the valve to start working again by disconnecting some wires?

I have about a first grade understanding of sprinkler systems, but am willing to learn. I was thinking about replacing the valve but I wanted to make sure the wiring wasn’t the culprit first before I spend the time and the money on replacing it.

[brkaus]

No. I’m saying if you disconnect the wires directly at the valve, run the cycle, nothing happens (no watering, no chattering, no controller disconnecting from wifi) you can pretty much guarantee it is the valve.

Once you finish above experiment (to eliminate wiring shorts as a possible problem), then you can turn off your water, remove the solenoid, connect it to the wires and see if it chatters outside of the valve (it likely will).

It most cases, it’s pretty easy to twist out the solenoid (turn off the water to the sprinklers first) and replace it. Just bring it to store and find a match. Helps to bring a picture of the valve as well.

[bikedude]

Right on. So I followed your instructions and it worked as advertised. Bad solenoid. New solenoid at Home Depot for about $8 and everything is now working perfect. Thanks for the help!