Help with sprinkler issue

Hey guys, I’d really appreciate some insight into the issue I’m having.

I planted seed almost two weeks ago and 5 days ago I had a bad leaky valve that made it impossible to have the water on. I could not get a new valve to replace it with until yesterday. I replaced the top half and it’s better but actually one screw still wouldn’t tighten on the leak side and it’s still very slowly leaking so it looks like I have to replace the whole thing now which will be a pain.

Anyway. When I was messing with the leaky valve days ago, I decided to just turn the sprinklers on and let them run, then just turn off my water when they’re done until I could fix it. But when I went to turn my sprinklers on, the controller acted totally normal and started my cycle, but nothing was happening. It had just worked maybe an hour earlier. This issue still persists now.

The controller looks fine on screen and everything starts but when it says it’s running a station, it’s not. And I’ve tried multiple stations. I took some pictures, all the wiring looks the same as it’s been. Nothing changed. The area underground definitely was flooded a little from when the leak was unnoticed but the sprinklers were working up until I was messing with that valve. When I was taking the valve off I did bump some wires but again, everything seems connected. All the stations work fine if you manually turn the solenoid.

There is a white wire that is just not connected to anything in the underground area, but I’m positive it’s always been like that.

Any idea? Did my controller just suddenly die?

Thanks for any help, here’s the pictures

https://imgur.com/a/e1u65Ve

Posted Jun 17, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC · edited

23
suspiciousumbrella•

Check whether there is voltage coming out of the controller. Turn a station. Put the multimeter in AC voltage mode, put one lead on the lead marked "COM" and one on a numbered station you turned on earlier. You should have about 24V, though anywhere between about 23-28 would be completely normal.

1
itsgittyOP•

Okay I’ll do this after work. If there’s no voltage then I need to replace the whole controller?

1
DunpeaI•

So attached to the valve is the solenoid coil

That has to be attached to one colored wire , and then one “common” wire

So from the valve see where the wires are connected.

The white wire should have all the valves connected to it.

You have the white wire attached to common in your timers station terminals

1