Moving from rainbird to Rachio3 but sprinklers on not turning on



trying to setup new Rachio3 on the app it shows as spinkling when setting up zones but sprinklers are not running. can you help with this? attaching old rainbird and new Rachio wiring here

@Arun - It looks like the wiring is correct. By chance has it rained there recently? The reason I ask is that I didn’t see anything hooked up to the sensor connections in the Rainbird - sometimes older installations were installed with the rain/freeze sensor in-line with the common wire. When wired this way the zones won’t run with a wet sensor as the circuit is not complete with the rain sensor open on the common wire, even though the controller (Rainbird or Rachio) is sending power down the circuit and thinking the zones are running.

Is there a rain sensor somewhere in the setup?

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@DLane - yup, that’s right. it is actually raining from morning. so I should give it a try when rain stops and things dry out may be ? I am not sure on the rain sensor though as I am new to this home

@Arun - Yes, or find the rain sensor and take it out of the common wire (cut the wires on each side of the rain sensor and connect them together). Many people run with just the weather intelligence for rain and freeze skips. Or if you can find the unused black and brown wires where the rain sensor is then you can connect the rain sensor to those wires and connect the sensor up to the Rachio (S1 or S2 and 24 VAC -).

See → Rachio compatibility with a wired rain sensor

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Now I figured it out. its the rain sensor as you suggested. thank you so much for the help - @DLane

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I also moved from a Rainbird controller with an attached rain sensor and eventually turned off the rain sensor (kept it wired) within the app settings. I kept getting repeating notifications as the sensor turned on and off, which was annoying. Rachio’s documentations calls use of a sensor “supplemental,” and I didn’t notice any benefits with the rain sensor connected to my controller. (I am using the Flex Daily schedule and have connected my Rachio 3 to a local weather station about 3/4 of a mile away.)

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I suspect your problem is completely related to the rain sensor. I started out with Rachio and used my iPhone to skip watering - used a water X minutes every other day - the same as my Rainbird system. Then I moved to the FlexDaily schedule. This worked better than the rain sensor systems in my previous residence. I did not a local weather station I could reference about 2 miles away.

After a couple of years I opted for the Tempest Weather station in my backyard. This system is great for measuring rain. Its weakness is wind.