I just installed my New Rachio 3 yesterday and none of the zones will activate. It’s been raining for a few days straight here so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or not but it won’t activate when I manually select it. I uninstalled the Rachio and hooked the RainBird back up and now that won’t activate them. Any thoughts???
I’ve included a photo of the rainbirds wiring before I unhooked it. There is a red wire that was unhooked when I removed the panel so I’m not sure if that could be the issue or not. Any help in getting this to work would be appreciated.
@innovadave - If there is a rain sensor in-line on the common line this would be the behavior.
Do you have access to an ohm meter where you can measure resistivity between common and a valve?
Can a zone be manually activated using the bleed screw?
1 Like
I do have an Ohm meter and there is a rain sensor (no idea if it’s on the common, I assume it is). I have no idea where the valve or bleed screw is (I know just enough to be dangerous) 
I did use the volt meter to make sure when the zone is activated that it does send voltage to the zone which it did, so I would assume with my limited knowledge that the voltage would then trigger the zone to activate.
I haven’t even found the manifold yet. I’m assuming it’s buried in the shrubs near the garage but it’s been raining so much I haven’t had a chance to dig for it.
@innovadave - There didn’t appear to be a rain sensor configured in the RainBird controller. So if you do have a rain sensor it may very well be in-line on the common and that is the issue. The rain sensor is normally closed and will open when wet, so there is no circuit that can be completed. The rain sensor should be visible like on a roof or fence.
I’d recommend cutting out the rain sensor from the common wire and wire it directly into the Rachio.
If you put one lead from the ohm meter on the common wire and the other lead from the ohm meter on a zone wire (take both out from the Rachio) there should be some resistivity. If there is no resistivity, there is no complete circuit - either an open rain sensor or a broken wire.
I’ll take a look and see if I can figure that out. I was hoping that was the issue since everything else seems to work and I’ve never tested the old system when it’s been raining out Worst case I’ll wait until we have a couple days of sun and try it again then. LOL Thanks for the info!
2 Likes