Every since i fired up my irrigation in the spring my flow monitor hasnt been working correctly.
It first started showing flow rates way higher then what they were last year like 4x to 5x higher.
I just disabled flow monitoring until i had time to have a look at it. Tried calibrating today and its not recognizing any flow monitoring.
Removed the flow meter, cleaned it, looked good
Checked wiring to flow meter, its good.
Whats weird is i test voltage at S1 and S2 and shows 80v.
Im not a electrician and my volt meter isnt top of the line but shouldnt it be 24v?
All my valves are working as they should.
Any suggestions?
Are you connecting the meter Red wire to S1 (or S2) and the black wire to 24VAC- ?
It sounds like you are measuring to common, not 24VAC-.
Yes i am. Not testing any of the commons
Everything was working fine last couple year. The issue started this year.
I was playing around with the volt meter at the wire connection at the flow meter while running a calibration.
Once and a while i rachio would show a reading but not consistent and not accurate.
Starting to think its a problem with the flow meter it self
At the terminals of the Rachio, you should read roughly 24 to 28Vdc between S1 and 24VAC- if the meter is connected (flow off). If meter is not connected, you will see about 38Vdc. Make sure your meter is reading DC.
After that, the way to troubleshoot is to watch the display on the meter itself because it tells the story of what is actually going on. You will see if display is on and then watch as zone turns on how long it takes to show a stable reading. If you have an intermittent connection, the total (top number) will keep getting reset to 0.
At low flow, or not enough back-pressure at the meter from down-stream lines, you may also see spurious zeros show up in the current flow indication on the meter, which doesn’t reset the total, but can screw up your calibration. The total display resets any time power to the meter is interrupted.
We had to install 1" PVC gate valve just downstream of the meter to fix spurious “cavitation” dropouts from the meter - cranking it slightly closed until they didn’t occur. Our meter is above our irrigation valves.
Oh maybe that was my reading error, probably had it on AC. I’ll check again today.
This meter doesnt have the display screen so no way to see what its reading.
Im thinking of buying another length of cable and trying that. Im reading the flow meter puts out such a low voltage that noise can effect it. Currently using thermostat wire. See people recommending CAT 5 cable…?
I’ve haven’t had any issues the last two years, worked perfect until i fired up my irrigation this spring.
Nothing has changed so im not sure how this could have have an effect.
Thermostat wire isn’t waterproof. Lots of discussion here about correct wire for meter signals. I strongly recommend dedicated signal wire:
For burial, I use (and recommend) Paige P7162D (part no. 180095TH) underground shielded signal cable, 16 AWG, 1 pair with drain wire. There’s also an armored version P7162D-A (part no. 180096TH) if you need the protection from aerators, etc. Both these cables are available from SiteOne.
