Need help installing Rachio 2nd gen (hunter pro c)

I have a similar device I am trying to migrate from as seen in the first sets of photos. The only difference is that I have power going from the house to the device, then power wires going out to the system.

Is there anything I need to do differently?

this was the solution from rachio tech support
After review of your images, it appears that these 3 wires(red, white, and blue) are not necessary. It seems these are battery wires necessary for the Hunter controller, but not our Rachio controller. I suggest these wires be capped off. The COM, P/MV and zone wires go to the corresponding terminals, in the Gen2 controller.

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@Jules, that sounds correct! Let us know if anything else comes up

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I followed all the instructions both listed in the manual and then read all the strings above. However when I start setting up the zones, I hear the water pump start but no water is coming out of the sprinkler system. I tested all the zones before installing the Rachio 2nd gen, so I know it works. Any advice?

It sounds like your common wire is not hooked up correctly

That is what I thought as well and I moved the common wire to the other location as well. As you can see I went one by one to make sure the wires go to the right location. Any workarounds with the insertion of the common wire?


you are missing your master valve wire, you can see it in second picture. so without that opening up there is no water pressure making it to your system. maybe this starts a pump? maybe its a master valve to your meter, not sure, but i think if you find that you will be good to go.

Which is the master valve wire? Thank you in advance for your help.

The red wire that is before zone1, next to the white wire that connected to Common.
Could be marked on the box as P/MV

@wx16 What was strange is that the red wire that was in the P/MV, I put that into Zone 1. Just so I am clear, the white wire goes in to C, the red wire that was in P/MV goes where in Rachio?

M slot which is the leftmost of the set of 5 in the center.

Ok great - let me give that ago later this evening @wx16.

I’m not sure which in now, but it was next to the common, sorry I can’t help more, from the pics I hope it is the wire plugged into zone 1

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I have already spent 5 hours trying to figure this out

  1. I don’t have an M wire on my hunter pro c
  2. All of my zones have 2 wires on hunter pro -c ( 2reds, 2 greens, 2 yellows …). How do i deal with this. Really have no idea

Any help is much appreciated. I was never a lawn guy but now I have already spent too much on Rachio and don’t want to go back Hunter Pro

@dynam81 - my first guess is to plug the two wires into the Rachio port. Depending on the size of the wire, two wires will fit into the Rachio port. If you can upload a picture of what you’re seeing/talking about that would be helpful.

If the two wires are too big to both fit into one Rachio port, then use a wire nut to connect a third wire to the first two and use the third wire to insert into the Rachio port.

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This is how it looks like. Appreciate your help.

@dynam81 - Yep, twist the wires together and put them in one Rachio port per zone. You’ll have the option of using separate C(ommon) ports on the Rachio for the two white wires in the Hunter COM port as there are at least two C(ommon) ports on the Rachio unit. I’m assuming that in real life there are only five zones, and not ten zones, in the sprinkler system. If there were ten zones, although it might be hard to tell as two zones would always come on at the same time, Rachio can drive two solenoids per port (check for more than five valves or covers. I think there was another post in the community a while back with a similar situation as that install had used telephone wire for the field wire. I can’t tell the wire size for sure, it may be thinner than normal so they could have thought they needed to put two wires in to help carry the small current.

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You are quiet right.There are 5 zones in my system. I am heading out now to fix this . Thanks

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