irrigation system valves: need advice

Hello All,

I am troubleshooting my lawn and garden irrigation system. Some of the Irritrol valves are working fine. Others are clicking and pulsing water. And one is silent and inactive, save for infrequent clicks. Re-doing the electrical contacts has not improved the weak and dead valves. Does this smell like failing and failed solenoids?

Many Thanks,

Andrei W. Konradi
Burlingame, CA

 

It sounds like you might have taken an electrical hit if a lot of them went bad all at once. Do you know how to take an ohms test with a multimeter?

The hammering valves can sometimes be the solenoid, sometimes the entire valve (the insides get stiff over time and no longer open and close well). If you buy the same style of valve you can typically undo the scews by hand and trade the guts and solenoid with a new valve and screw it all together again. Take a picture before you do so you know how it went together.


This could be your solenoids, your controller, or both. If a lot of solenoids went bad all at once I suspect either lightning/electrical charge, bad timer or just bad luck with the timing.

See if your timer is sending out voltage to any zones when the controller is off. Also see if it sends voltage to other zones when one zone is running. This means if say zone 1 was running and sending around 24-28 volts, is zone 2 sending anything above 0? An older clock can send a few volts but anything from 5+ volts can spell major trouble for the lifespan of any solenoid.

 

Much appreciated. All the valves were working fine, before I shut down the system last fall. I will check the voltages as you suggest, at the controller and at each valve. Thanks!

 

The problem does appear to be in the controller. Output voltages for all valve circuits are low, and output voltage for the "dead" valve is minimal. Disconnecting the wires for the dead valve from the controller, and connecting them directly to the 24 V AC output of the transformer caused immediate operation of the dead valve. I will install a new controller today. Thanks!

 

The controller may have killed some of your solenoids if it sent random or continuous power spikes to any of the valves. Hope they are fine, but just wanted to warn you in case the worst has happened.

 

I installed a new RainBird controller. All solenoid valves are working properly now. Thanks again! Andrei

 

Great news! Glad we could help. Happy sprinkling.

 

Surprisingly, i happen to be in the same town as awkonradi!

I just came across this thread and think I am having the same or similar problem. I tried taking an ohmmeter thing my dad has and seeing if we could test for the 24 volts coming in. but when i put the two lead sticks onto the various zone screws on the controller, the meter only read 1.9 MILLIvolts, consistently across the various zones.

my problem is that when i turn on my backyard sprinkler zones, i hear my pipes knocking/pulsing/hammering. Here's a picture of my controller. It is the same Irritrol type- 12 zone.

I'm also not sure how to connect the wires of the valve to the direct 24 V DC current as awkonradi suggested.

Should i replace the controller? I'm not sure if I really should do that yet.

http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/a...2/IMG_1667.jpg

http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/a...2/IMG_1668.jpg

http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/a...2/IMG_1669.jpg

To be clear, I put one meter stick on the screw that has the black wire going into it, labeled 24 and then the other meter stick on every one of the zone screws and the meter consistently returns 1.9 MILLIvolts.

I'm going to try taking the actual wires off and remeasuring with the meter to see if that makes a difference.

 

you voltage output sounds somewhat normal, I think awkonodi (pardon my spelling) had more voltage coming out than he should have, and it was not sending enough when it was supposed to.

First try this. Pick a zone wire in the backyard that does not work well... unscrew it from the controller and place it on the top right posts labelled 24 vac (be careful not to touch them with your fingers).

Have a helper see if the valves are hammering or not.

Then, try running it normally with the controller after you hookup the wire again and see if there is a difference.

Also, if you were measure current in your controller, you are set to DC voltage there. The controller uses AC.

I just re-read your post again. To try a zone valve directly to the incoming power supply, remove, say the brown wire. Then touch it to the post/slot on the top right for a while when someone helps you watch to see if they hammer or not.