I just purchased and installed a Rachio Gen 3 from Costco and an Everydrop 1004EX WIRED flow meter. First of all installation was not as easy as I thought. The most basic connection to the controller.
The 1004EX Has two wires. Black and red. I connected the red to the 24+ on the controller and the black to the S2 connection. The app appeared to recognize the flowmeter. The flow meter has no display which I am assuming it’s because I did not connect it to the positive and negative 24- and 24+. I ran the calibration tool in the app and the flow meter was registering 19.39 gpm. The app within freeze. I could not cancel the operation or set a value. Even when the calibration ended and the flow went to 0.0. Overall I cannot determine if the calibration was complete. I am assuming I installed the flowmeter to the controller just fine. Any advice?
What’s interesting is the Everydrop meter looks very similar to the Rachio wireless meter.
Red wire has to connect to S2 (or S1, which ever you prefer), black wire should connect to 24- terminal.
When setup as a flow meter, S2 terminal will output the needed 5V bias voltage to run the flow meter.
Actually, when you wire it that way you are overvoltaging the flowmeter by 20+ volts. Connecting it to 24VAC + or common will put over 60 volts on the meter at the peaks of the AC. (Meter is rated to 40V) The reason that the Rachio reads ~19gpm is that the over voltage protection circuit draws current at the 60Hz line frequency which equates to 19.4gpm. It will show that continuously with or without flow while connected. This could also damage the meter.
Fantastic advice Gene! I found this thread, hooked up my EveryDrop meter as you stated and it all worked! Saved me a lot of time guessing - much appreciated.
