First Zone always take two tries

[mickeyshowers]

I started to notice that my flower beds were looking bad, so I went in and checked my watering logs. All good. Watering as expected. I tested the zone to see if I had a broken head or something but when I submitted the job, nothing happened. I stopped the run. Submitted again and it ran as it should. I tried it several more times and it ran every time.

Since then, I’ve tested this randomly and at least 3/4 of the time, the first command to run the zone does not work. Any idea what’s going on? This behavior is what prompted me to update from Wheezy. I installed everything from scratch on a new SD card and restored my settings from backup so I’m up to date as of last week.

OS Buster
App 2.3.3
FW 2.20(2)

[mickeyshowers]

The strangeness continues. I can manually run zones. Sometimes it takes two tries to make the first zone run but my program is will not run the zones at all. OSPi logs the program runs and says they’re running but I’m clearly not watering. I’ve recreated the program. No change. Ideas?

[Desert rat]

I have a similar issue with my first zone as well. I believe that the sprinkler valve solenoid is at fault. When the system shows that the zone is running, but it actually isn’t watering. The current usage shown at the bottom of the page on OS is very high, usually something in the 457mA range. When the sprinkler is actually working and actively watering the current usage is in the range of about 240mA.
I haven’t had time to troubleshoot it yet, but I’m pretty sure that is my problem. The valve is a 30+ year old Champion brass valve so the parts are kind of expensive, but once I get it working again it will likely outlive me before it has another issue.

[Desert rat]

After more troubleshooting I found that my issue was not enough current to operate the valve. I replaced my 500 mA transformer with a 1.5 Amp and now the valve works every time.

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