Replaced Hunter with Rachio -> sprinklers water but do not popup!

hey folks, just purchased a Rachio 3 12-zone from Costco. followed all the directions. tested it out on on zone. the sprinklers activate but do not pop out! What gives? I connected everything except the wires going into the GND, AC1, AC2 and REM on the rainbird. Everything on the Right-half of the rainbird has been transferred to the Rachio

Do all zones behave the same? Do you have a master valve or pump? Did you activated it as such within the app? If you manually turn on the valve by rotating the solenoid, if they are that type, does it behave the same?

If they’re not popping-up, they’re not getting water, which means the valve for that zone isn’t opening, which means the zone isn’t actually “activating,” despite what the controller says.

If everything worked with your old controller and doesn’t with the new, then either you’ve done something wrong or the new controller is defective.

@sblu - The black wire on the Hunter is probably in the Pump/Master Valve location. As @Thomas_Lerman mentioned, be sure to activate that setting in the Rachio app. Is the water physically turned on to the irrigation system? Previous posters have found that the water supply was turned off.

Hi Guys I appreciate the response. I had just turned on the zone with the hunter - it works and water is turned on. I transferred the black wire to the M connection and selected it in the app. When I activated the zone water comes out of the sprinklers as it seeps from under the soil on the pop-outs - it doesn’t pop out though. That’s the problem. One more thing to note is that on some of the sprinklers in this zone that are not of the pop-out type the water pressure is much lower than when hooked to the hunter…seems like a pressure issue!

I posted the hunter connections previously, here are the Rachio connections and app settings:

Your wiring looks good and I see you have a master valve which is set up correctly. You are correct that it seems like a pressure thing. It sure sounds odd as the solenoids are mostly either on or off. The next steps I would do are:

  1. I am curious if ALL of the zones seem to have the “low pressure” took to them? I am asking this as you have said “zone” in the singular form.
  2. What kind of valves do you have? I am asking this to see how you can manually turn on a valve.
  3. After knowing how to manually turn on a valve, I would turn on one valve manually, leave it on for a minute or two, and see what the pressure it like. Oh wait, manually turn on the master valve too. Repeat for each valve turning off the previous zone first (leaving on the master valve). After doing them all, manually turn off the master valve.
    1. If the pressure does not look good on any zone, something strange might be happening
    2. If the pressure looks good on all of the zones, manually turn on the master valve and run each zone through Rachio

I am trying to narrow down where the issue lies. Sorry for all the questions, etc.

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This is the type of valve I have - believe this is the master? I don’t believe I can turn it manually

Has to tell, Orbit or Rain Bird is what I would guess. The ones that I have seen with the hexagon solenoid can be manually turned on by turning it about 1/4 turn counterclockwise.

Hi Folks, wanted to update you on this. It was indeed a water-pressure issue. Home PRV had to be replaced. reverting back to the original hunter did not resolve teh issue, so i knew the issue was elsewhere. thanks to ya’ll for helping regardless!

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