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possessed sprinkler system

18 years ago

My neighbor is very and and needs some help. His timer box seems to be working fine but none of the zones come on. I checked his valves and he was getting power through the first zone but none of the others. When I went to remove the valve on zone 1, as soon as I tuned it a little it came on. I have cut the wires and disconected the box, but one touch to the valve and on they come. I don't see a master valve. Please help, he can't afford a pro and I am at wits end. He has a RainBird ESP6 series box with a 5 zone system. Thank you.

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Comment (1)

mrpike
18 years ago
Your control box should be putting out 24 V DC when you check the colored wire for that zone, and the white common wire.

Check that with a volt meter.

If you are not getting power, you most likely have a clock or wire problem.

You can power a valve by using 3 9volt batteries connected in series to the valve wires. (Think bridging 2 batterys with the third, they all connect to each other)

This will isolate the valve from the clock to eliminate another possibility.
I would suggest cutting about 1/2 off of all the wires, and re-doing the connections. It sounds like a wiring problem to me. Probably on the white common wire.

You can manually actuate most valves by unscrewing the solenoid a 1/4 turn. This has no bearing on if the valve is bad or not.
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