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Need help with irrigation controller and valve!

Hi folks, I hope this is the right place for this...

I have an outdoor Hunter Pro-C controller installed, and I recently replaced the 'brain' and the transformer. My system is very simple with only one valve.

When I try to turn on watering, the controller displays 'ERR' and the valve does not function.

These are the things I checked out first -- I disconnected the wires at the valve and got out my meter.

1) Checking for shorts in the valve solenoid -- I get 1.7 ohms on my meter 2) Checking for shorts in the wiring up to (and including) the controller -- I get 0 ohms on my meter

One thing I noticed is that the transformer has one ground wire (green) and two hot wires (yellow) but only one of them seems to be hot! The transformer is by Hunter and is supposed to output 24 VAC. My meter says

26.5 V on one yellow wire and 0 on the other. This doesn't seem right, can anyone comment?

I've considered temporarilly hooking in the indoor power adapter instead of the transformer to see what happens -- haven't done this yet.

Anything else I should check out?

Thanks, Dan

Reply to
Daniel Garrison
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Dan -

This is normal. Power reagardless that is from a Hunter AC transformer has 3 leads by code.

1) Hot (24Volts AC) 2) Neutral (return for AC) 3) safety ground

You will always see a larger voltage from the transformer while the zones (loads) are not operating. This voltage you saw is exceptable. If the voltage drops to 19 VAC or below during operation you might want to look at replacing the tranformer since its job is to supply 24 VAC during operation.

Reply to
jonmccombs

Nope. Code doesn't have much to say about low voltage (less than

50vac). I suspect the three leads are AC1, AC2, and ground. Most systems do without the ground. No neutral, because it would have to be tied to ground or the neutral on the other side of the transformer, and that would compromise the isolation provided by the transformer and make it much harder for the device to pass safety approvals.

sdb

Reply to
sylvan butler

While I don't dispute the comments about the transformer, I disagree about code. The NEC has very much to say, chapter after chapter, about low voltage wiring.

Reply to
Robert L Bass

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