Hi
I’m looking at incorporating the wired Everydrop flow meter into a Rachio3 system. The flowmeter would be installed in-ground close to my valves. My issue is I had not planned on installing a flow-meter when the valves etc went in so dedicated wires don’t exist but …
I do have a spare wire at my valves (6-core flex for a 4 valve box) which could connect to S1 on the Rachio and the appopriate side on the flow meter. My question is, is the 24- which present at the valves common with the 24- I need to connect the other side of the flow meter to? If it is then I believe there is the potential for me to connect the other side of the flow meter to the 24- at the valves.
Alas, the common wire is actually interconnected with 24+ voltage, your controller “grounds” the zone output to 24- voltage when it should be active.
One option to consider is to drive two of the zones with a wire splitter. These work by encoding information on which output should be active and allowing two zones to share a single wire (thereby freeing one extra wire). Flow meter will not work on these, but moving your zones to it and hooking up the water meter to the two free wires should work.
Thanks Gene
I figured it wouldn’t be that easy. I’ll take a look at the link you sent as running a new wire really isn’t possible due to needing to get it under concrete etc…
There may be a way, if you have 2 spare sprinkler wires in the incoming wire bundles that both run NEAR the flow meter (ie: only dirt separates the underground wire bundle(s) and the meter). You then only need to get a short section of flowmeter wire to run from the meter to the hole you’re going to dig to find the sprinkler wire bundle(s). Buy yourself a small valve box for the hole. Identify the two unused wires you need (we used a wire tracer buzzing from the Rachio end of the selected unused wires), cut them and splice your meter’s common (usually black or white) to one wire and signal (usually red) to the other. Use gel-caps or waterproof connections. Wire the common at Rachio to the -24V tap, and the signal to S1 or S2. The Everydrop will tell you when your connection is OK, it lights up the display.
I’m putting a new reply online here to the original question (adding an Everydrop 1004-EX under unusual circumstances) because my previous reply (which I’ve left in place as the illustration of NOT doing something an irrigation pro recommended) led me astray for over a year diagnosing Everydrop integration flow meter integration. My newest recommendation:
You MUST tie the Everydrop 1004-EX flow meter to the Rachio controller with SHIELDED cable for the continuous length of the connection if it is anywhere near your valve wire bundles above or below ground or any other electrical cabling. I had a professional irrigation installer (one of the biggest in Texas) route the Everydrop meter leads via readily reachable spare underground sprinkler zone valve control wires near the flow meter to be used as the meter leads at the Rachio controller - a bad idea. Without all the technical details, I’ll remind you that the Everydrop uses a two-conductor 24V loop for both its power AND as the “carrier” for the pulses used to calculate flow. They simply MUST NOT be near the unshielded 24V ON or OFF control wires that operate your zone’s valves. Symptoms of such a configuration - missing (including zero) flow indications, calculation errors or failures to determine flow from Everydrop meter signals because of spurious, intermittent (or constant) failure of the Rachio controller to interpret, or even recognize, signals from the flow meter.
The proper connection is for the signal (usually red) lead of the Everydrop to end at the S1 or S2 terminal at the Rachio controller, and the return (usually black) lead of the Everydrop to the -24V terminal. The drain wire of the shielded cable (a bare conductor, usually) should be connected to a COM terminal of the controller and left open (unattached) at the flow meter location. Paige Irrigation cable nos. P7162D or P7162D-A (armored), 16 awg/1 pair + drain or equivalent (sometimes called “Toro sensor cable”) are recommended for this wiring.
Finally, I can assure you that Rachio and Everydrop have been extraordinarily helpful in diagnosing this issue. This forum and a couple interested irrigation technicians led to the solution here.
Thank you for providing this info. New Gen 3 owner and dealing with the no wifi meter availability. Just purchased the 1004 and now know i need shielded wire to go with. First search, and this thread, and your comments saved me a ton of time. A beer or 3 is on me! Anytime.
Hi @JBTexas, can you elaborate a bit more on the original install you’ve tried, when you’ve used a spare wire(s) within the irrigation cable?
I’m glad you’ve got your setup up and running, but personally don’t think the shielding was a requirement (I don’t use it in my setup, and I’m running the sensor wires right alongside the irrigation and, in places, power cables, without any issues).
When it was not working, were you getting a constant, wrong, flow reading? When using a spare wire for flow meters, installer has to understand that in case of Rachio, 24V- is NOT the same as COM (which is actually 24V+ signal).
Connecting any sensor to COM would result in erroneous readings and as such you’d need at least two spare wires to connect sensor properly to S1 and V- terminals.
By “grounding” the shielding to COM you’ve actually introduced a 60Hz 24V noise as close to the sensor wires as possible, if everything works with this worst-case scenario, then it should work without any issues while being completely unshielded.
For 60 Hz noise you don’t even get much benefit from a twisted pair cable unless your run is very long indeed. Both sides of the cable will be affected equally and mostly cancel out, that’s why you don’t see twisted pair used for power cables. Shielding power cables is mostly used for fire and personal safety, rather than noise immunity.
That being said, the sensor circuit used by Rachio is actually pretty well build for noise immunity, that’s why Everydrop can induce a constant load / signal on the output and still stay below the noise floor. Instead of voltage, Rachio uses current to sense the signal, that means that whatever is causing noise would have to induce a current flow from one terminal to another for long enough that it would have to get past an RC filter.
Shielding of the sensor leads back to the controller, in my circumstances (110’), appears to be required. It also appears to be required the shield drain (NOT any signal leads) be grounded or tied to COM at the controller.
In the failing install, there was no shielding or drain, and two unused sprinkler valve leads were used in a bundle running back to the controller (about 80’ together in the bundle which also contains 4-5 “live” valve wires and the COM).
Yes, I understand what the signal line and -24V line are at the controller. The sensor cable I eventually installed is 2-conductor 16 gauge insulated, shielded with 16 gauge drain, armored - for 6-8" burial. It’s generically called “Toro sensor cable”. Above ground, it remains shielded in its own conduit to within a couple inches of the Rachio. It has not failed since installation.
I’ve had a Rachio 3 for quite a while and I’m on my second 1004-EX. Failures were intermittent zeros to the Rachio, and occasional “freezes” when Rachio would be “stuck” interpreting zero pulses. Only full power resets (intentional or natural interruptions) would recover. The Rachio software seems to have improved over the last year to better filter pulse input - smoothing or ignoring zero perhaps - and got better handling input. I don’t have access to the tools (signal recorders, software debugging, external pulse monitoring, etc.) to do much but experiment, which I’ve done for almost a year and a half. We’ve tested voltages and continuity at every step, changed connectors (dry or wet) at all junctions, even soldering connections without improving it. We installed a 1" PVC gate valve downstream from the 1004-EX to increase back pressure on the horizontal meter in case cavitation or flow irregularities were causing those zeros. As I indicated, I’m not equipped or skilled in low voltage electronics sufficient to tell you how the problem occurs, but I know now how to fix it.
The connection to COM is what trowing me off. Should you measure AC voltage to either of the wires, you’ll see some voltage which would effect the signal, no matter how small the said effect may be.
Have you tried running the system with shield disconnected from COM? I’m sure it got ‘“grounded” as soon as you’ve installed the cable, but try using just the new wires without the shield hooked up to a wrong terminal.
At least move it to 24v- terminal for better results.
I have no problem with that… I may start by directly grounding the shield if that’s available. I’d like to avoid combining the meter COM which goes to -24V with that shield at the same terminal - if for no other reason than political. I’ve gone around the world with Everydrop about wiring - even digging up and sending them an already-installed meter that exhibited spurious zeros. That meter, in their lab, ran perfectly (and cost me $100). I’ve had Everydrop and Rachio each doubting that they’re the problem, so they’re now only connected by 2 continuous, insulated, shielded, armored (whew!) conductors.
Sorry to hear that, troubleshooting something can be a challenge, I know.
I don’t work for Rachio, nor Everydrop, my 2 cents are just from a perspective of an engineer who had rachio for a few years now and been involved in community forums learning from and helping other members.
Alas Rachio doesn’t use a physical, earth, ground. Controller is essentially floating / isolated from mains. This is good in cases where you want to connect several controllers together (one member actually had to share their master valve with a Neighbour for example). But this also means that there is no true ground available anywhere on the device.
Out of all the terminals available to you, 24V- is the only terminal which is essentially ground for a signal input, by connecting the shield to anything else somewhat defeats its purpose.
It’s not bad either, what you want to happen is for any outside interference to induce eddy current onto the shield and have it found an independent path to signal ground without effecting the signal loop.
Personally I don’t think that shielding is a requirement for all of the installs, as I don’t use one for example, but in the installs which do use it, like yours, I hope to help you get the most out of it.
