Rain/Freeze Senor not working

[seockwig]

I bought the semi-assembled kit a couple of weeks ago and finally got around to installing it. Great controller and app….love being able to program it from my tablet. All my zones work and my program runs when it’s supposed.

However, I’ve run into a problem with my rain/freeze sensor. It’s actually the same sensor you have in your blog post dated Feb. 6th 2012, titled “Using Rain/Freeze Sensor with OpenSprinkler.” I hooked up the sensor; set the controller to “Use Rain Sensor”; set a program to run and once the program started pushed the sensor to test it…and it did not shut off. So, on the Sprinkkler App I went into device settings and unchecked the box “Normally Open (Rain Sensor)” and pressed the sensor switch again and the sprinkler shut off. However when I released the switch everything stayed off. When I checked the web interface the RainSense still show Rain Detected. The only way I was able to clear it was by rebooting the OpenSprinkler controller. So right now the rain sensor half works….it will shut off the sprinkler system when it detects rain, but it never resets back to the ready state unless I reboot the controller. I am missing something? Is there a built in delay for the rain sensor?

Thanks!

[Ray]

First, because the webpage does not refresh automatically, to check update on the sensor status, you need to refresh the page.

Second, if you are using the same sensor as I blogged about before, that one is normally closed. So the ‘normally open’ checkbox should be off (I thought it’s by default set to off, but I could be wrong).

Next, the current firmware (2.0.5) handles rain delay / rain sense in this way: once rain delay is activated or rain is detected through rain sensor, it stops the current running program, and once the program stops it will not resume even if rain is deactivated during the program run.

[seockwig]

Thanks for the info.

I should’ve known about the trying to refresh the web page after making a change. My fault for not trying that.

I have the “Normally Open” box off, which is what I thought it should be. I don’t remember if the box was checked or unchecked when I first started it up; I went through a couple of rounds of checking and checking the box. Thanks for confirming that it should be unchecked.

That’s the piece I was missing. I didn’t realize it stopped the whole program from running. I guess I was used to the old analog RainBird controller I had; you tested the rain sensor by pushing it down. Which shut the system off, then when you released the plunger it would immediately activate the system again. Right now I’ve got the Rain Sensor enabled again. On the web interface it’s in the “Rain Detected” state. We’ve had a fair amount of rain the past few days…and we’ve got rain in the forecast for rest of the week as well. So it may be a week or so before it dries out enough to see if it changes states.

Thanks for the help and I’ll report back probably sometime next week.

[Ray]

Prior to firmware 2.0.5, the algorithm used to do what your rainbird controller does: when rain sensor is activated, it shuts off the valves, and then when the rain sensor is deactivated the valves will be open again, assuming the program hasn’t terminated. So if you would like the same way, and don’t need the ‘per-station ignore rain’ feature available in firmware 2.0.5, you can flash the controller back to firmware 2.0.4.

Alternatively, instead of connecting the rain sensor to the rain sensor port, you can connect the rain sensor in series with the COM (common) wire. This way when rain is activated, it will electrically break the COM wire, but will not terminate the programs. This is a more common way to connect rain sensor on controllers which don’t have dedicated rain sensor port (and hence have no software handling of rain sensor).

[seockwig]

Now that I understand the way it works that is fine by me. In fact I prefer that it stops the program cycle all together when it detects rain.

Having the rain sensor in series with the COM wire was the way it was hooked up to the old RainBird controller before that controller died. I prefer using the dedicated rain sensor port.

So….now for a little update.

We didn’t get the rain today that was predicted; so when I got home from work I checked the webpage for my OpenSprinkler. And it still said “Rain Detected”; which seemed odd because it had been warm and sunny pretty much all day. I refreshed the page a couple of times just make sure..and cleared the cache just to be on the safe side….but it didn’t change. So I pulled apart the rain sensor; so there would be no pressure on the switch; and the rain state still didn’t change. Next I rebooted the controller…and it still showed “Rain Detected” on the web page. So this is now new….I can’t get the rain state to clear at all. I go in and check to make sure the rain sensor is plugged in tightly to the controller…and it is. So I spend the next half an hour trying various things; check the “Normally Open” box and then uncheck, reboot…it is not doing anything like it should. I get it to work once…and then and go to repeat it and it fails. I’m about ready to give up on the rain sensor all together when I decide to go back to the basics.

Back to trouble shooting 101…..first thing check the cable. The end’s are good…follow the cable around and hmmmm…..this doesn’t look right[attachment=0:3j2rce1b]rsz_img_20140618_173538_565_2.jpg[/attachment:3j2rce1b]. A chipmunk(at least I’m pretty sure it’s a chipmunk as I’ve seen it in the garage before) has chewed a section of the wire completely away! 😮 Hmmm……no wonder things aren’t behaving the way they should. So I run a new wire from the controller to the rain sensor and proceed to test it….and everything works beuatifully 😀

Bottom line…too many new variables and not doing the basic steps in troubleshooting. I appreciate the quick response’s and the help.

Thanks again!

[Author]

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