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Hi there. As a testimonial of the robustness of OpenSprinkler I’ve been missing from the forum for YEARS 🙂
Only glitch in several years was the external transformer dying in the wake of a neighbourhood wide back out !
This morning I have found that the valve of one of my 7 active sectors does not open.
What measurement should I seek at the valve? 24 AC volts when open and nothing when closed ?
My HW model is 2.1AC with firmware 2.1.5 (as I think upgrading my version is a little complex).
Thank you for any help
PS The valve lets water flow if activated manually so I’d discount an hydraulic problem.
PPS Well the forum systems told me I did post 1 year and 11 months ago but not for support so my robustness statement does hold !! 🙂
The first thing is to check whether this is a problem with the valve, or circuit problem on OpenSprinkler. The easiest is to switch that zone wire to a different zone port and test that zone, see if the valve functions correctly. If so, it’s likely that the triac (AC transistor) on the original zone has gone bad and needs to be replaced. If switching to a separate zone, the valve still doesn’t work, it’s likely a problem with the valve.
Problems with valves can also have a few different possibilities: mechanical or electrical. I don’t know much about mechanical problems, but in terms of electrical problems, you can test the resistance between the COM (common) wire with that zone wire. The resistance should be between 20 to 50 ohm. If it’s too small, there is likely a shorting somewhere. If it’s too large, may be a broken wire.
Hi there Ray,
hope you’re doing well!Actually the problem was simpler 🙂
In my setup between the OS unit and the valves there’s a 25 meter run of an Ethernet Cat6 cable.
I used one of the wires as the common and the other 7 for the 7 sectors I need.
It turns out that after the 3-4 years some oxidation of the exposed end of the wire near the valve had caused a further drop in voltage.
Cleaned the wire and soldered it to the valve et voilà all is good.
Waiting for the same thing to happen to any of the other 6 sectors as I’m lazy (and really busy) 🙂
Take care
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