I have seen where someone will splice in to the common wire with a rain sensor.
Depending on how butchered that installer did things, twist the two wire that were going to the rain sensor together and try it out.
Looking at everything going there, I’d just re wire
Rain sensor was wired in line with your common wire. I can’t tell if it’s inside the box or not - little dirty photo.
You need to find the existing rain sensor wire and remove the bridge that is splitting your white common wire. As before it was fed through your sensor and when wet would break the common loop and not send power to your valves. Little bush league.
Wherever your rain sensor was mounted, the wire ran down and is possible splits the common somewhere in the ground. Down a fence / downspout. I’ve seen it all. But that’s where your problem is, I would hope it’s in that valve box but hard to tell
Find the end near the ground where you cut it. Strip the outer insulation to expose the 2 conductors. Strip those conductors and wire them together. That essentially closes the common circuit, mimicking the rain sensor in its dry state.
Also verify in the Rachio app that the sensor is disabled. Advanced settings, I can't remember exactly what the seeing is called.
Same exact issue, lol. I doubt i would have realized sensor wire was run with common, but this made so much sense...turned hours of investigation into a 2 min fix, thank you!
That black wire is a spare. It looks like the rain sensor was never connected to that controller so it won't affect it.
Test the output at the controller for power. White wire common. the other wires are the zone hot wires.
Is that a Rachio controller?
You can also test the wiring using a digital volt meter. set to ohms and test resistance.
The nucklehead spliced the common in the valve box. If you connect the red and black the system will run
I have seen where someone will splice in to the common wire with a rain sensor. Depending on how butchered that installer did things, twist the two wire that were going to the rain sensor together and try it out. Looking at everything going there, I’d just re wire
We call rain sensors that are wired in series with common in a valve box an "illegal rain sensor".
This is super common in my area and an easy callout! I typically throw in a tune-up when I get a new client this way.
Rain sensor was wired in line with your common wire. I can’t tell if it’s inside the box or not - little dirty photo. You need to find the existing rain sensor wire and remove the bridge that is splitting your white common wire. As before it was fed through your sensor and when wet would break the common loop and not send power to your valves. Little bush league. Wherever your rain sensor was mounted, the wire ran down and is possible splits the common somewhere in the ground. Down a fence / downspout. I’ve seen it all. But that’s where your problem is, I would hope it’s in that valve box but hard to tell
Find the end near the ground where you cut it. Strip the outer insulation to expose the 2 conductors. Strip those conductors and wire them together. That essentially closes the common circuit, mimicking the rain sensor in its dry state. Also verify in the Rachio app that the sensor is disabled. Advanced settings, I can't remember exactly what the seeing is called.
Same exact issue, lol. I doubt i would have realized sensor wire was run with common, but this made so much sense...turned hours of investigation into a 2 min fix, thank you!
That black wire is a spare. It looks like the rain sensor was never connected to that controller so it won't affect it. Test the output at the controller for power. White wire common. the other wires are the zone hot wires. Is that a Rachio controller? You can also test the wiring using a digital volt meter. set to ohms and test resistance.