This could apply to all flow meters!?!? Rachio- Please update your algorithm/compatibility with the Everydrop 1004-EX. I believe it is calculating the flow and reporting it to the app too soon and falsely keeps sending me High Flow alerts and shutting off my zones! This is happening all the time. (4 zones out of 16 last night). I believe it’s because almost all my zones at this location are on a slope, the water slowly escapes the lines by the time my controller runs again (every 3-4 days), therefore there is a short-term high burst/flow rate until the lines are fully pressurized. Maybe add an additional 15-30 seconds when reporting the flow reading to adjust to the initial burst/pressurization. Maybe make this an advanced setting that is adjustable for the end user? Please help!
PS: I have 8 flow meters. 7 are Rachio wireless units. The one I am having issues with is the wired Everydrop 1004-EX.
I found the setting. It was set to 4 minutes which should be plenty long enough you would think???
I changed it to 6.
@MeterManSays Any idea why I am getting these hiccups with the wired 1004-EX and not the wireless Rachio units? I just checked my Rachio controllers and they are all set to 2 minutes.
The way to troubleshoot this is to watch the display on the 1004 from the time the zone turns on until x minutes. You need to see what it is reading in real time. If you are getting any cavitation, the readings will never become consistent. You may not have enough backpressure in that zone to prevent it. Looking at display will tell the story of what is actually going on.
This happened again last night. High flow rate on 2 of my zones, they were disabled. I bumped it up from 6 minutes to 8 minutes.
Can you tell me what elements can cause the “cavitation”? As I said, I have 6 other flow meters (wireless) all within a couple miles of this one and none of them do this.
I was getting flow errors with my Everydrop 1004 as well. It turned out that I had connected the black wire from the 1004 to the + instead of the - of the 24VAC. Corrected the wiring and now it works as intended without any errors.
@jsimek thanks for the info. I am almost certain the wiring is correct but I will double check it. You had the red wire to common and the black wire to -24v and the unit appeared to work properly but it didn’t?
No. I had the black wire connected to +24v (incorrectly) and moved it to -24v, which is where it should have been from the start. The red lead is connected to S2. No more flow errors.
Here you go. Connecting to “Valve common” or +24VAC over-voltages the meter and also puts a permanent 60Hz signal to the Rachio which makes the Rachio read 19.4gpm 100% of the time that it is powered. (regardless of zones or flow)
@MeterManSays thanks very much for posting this. I am anxious to check my wiring. Will report back what I find. I did check one of my zones in the Rachio app and it shows a flow baseline of 8.6 gpm so that kinda tells me that it’s already correct? We’ll see.
Also, can you or someone tell Rachio to update their wiring instructions. I don’t think any person would look at them and know the correct way to wire up the sensor based on them.
Lastly I looked up the 1004-EX install instructions yesterday on your site and nowhere on it does it show what you posted, nor does it even mention Rachio!
Ok. May think about combining the 2 documents into 1 to reduce future issues. I believe I just searched for the 1004-EX manual and that what I got is what I posted. Thanks.
Ok, so assuming the wiring and the flow meter isn’t the issue…
First off, I don’t think you need 8minutes of settling time. I would think 3 minutes is even a lot unless you have some kind of low flow system. You can also just watch the flow meter itself and see how long it takes to settle out after turning on a zone.
You could run calibration to see what the meter is reporting for flow, and it should match what the flow meter displays. My guess is something in those zones has changed, or your water pressure changed. You didn’t change out a higher flow nozzle? And no nozzles fell out?
No nothing has changed on the zones. All nozzles are working properly. I am going to check on it and watch the screen on the flow meter. I agree 8 minutes is way high.
Fwiw I’ve had this happen randomly with mine as well, though not nearly at the rate you are seeing. I haven’t figured-out any correlation, but my default assumption is that they caution you to used twisted-pair wires to reduce possible interference and I did not. This would be easy with a completely new installation or if the meter is next to the controller, but in a typical retrofit this is simply not reasonable. E.g., I’d have to jackhammer up a nice stone sidewalk to run new wiring to the irrigation vault where the meter is, so instead I live with the random alerts.
Yes, like Cat6, though I imagine Cat5 or maybe even Cat3 would suffice. Interestingly the instructions that came with my meters clearly say twisted pair while the one on their website says shielded, so take your pick, but either way regular irrigation wire is neither, which may not be sufficient for longer runs when sharing with the noisy 24VAC activating solenoids.
