New valve won't run

[Mario23]

Trying to figure out what I did wrong here.

Etherrain 7 with pump control...

I added a 5th valve to my etherrain controller.
According to the wiring instructions, the 5th line goes on the second wire harness in the #2 position. I wired it that way and added the other wire to the commons that are all bundled together. The other valves still work fine but the new valve won't work. I added it in mcsprinklers and named it and assigned a zone and everything. On the zones status page, it has a red light on that valve and says status: valve failure.

The common is connected to the #1 position on the second harness but it looks like it could be wired to both harnesses. Could that be the problem? Does the new valve need to be under pressure to work properly? As it is when I select it, the pump doesn't turn on or anything.

Just wondering what troubleshooting you all would recommend.
Thanks

[Michael McSharry]

I belive Jim at Quicksmart would have a better chance of answering the question. From mcsSprinklers' perspective it provides a command to run the set of 7 valves with 6 of them being 0 time and the one being controlled with the time setup for the zone. I only have the 8 valve rather than the 7+1 hardware so I cannot say for certain that mcsSprinklers is properly controlling it, but seems odd that the valve 5 would be suspect if the other 4 are controlled correctly.

mcsSpriklers declares the valve failed if after some retries if does not get positive confirmation from the status response that the valve turned on.

[Mario23]

I'm going to try re-wiring it and see if that makes any difference. The pump really should of turned on regardless if the actual valve is working right. I'll check with Jim too...tks.

[jiml@quicksmart.com]

Trying to figure out what I did wrong here.
The common is connected to the #1 position on the second harness but it looks like it could be wired to both harnesses. Could that be the problem? Does the new valve need to be under pressure to work properly? As it is when I select it, the pump doesn't turn on or anything.

Just wondering what troubleshooting you all would recommend.
Thanks

Hi Mario,
For troubleshooting, the easiest way is usually to use EtherRain Admin. Click the "test" or "cycle test" button. This will allow you to enter test cycles and start and stop them easily. Put a value in the input box for the fifth zone, you can select minutes or seconds, click run. If you can run the test while viewing the controller front panel you can see the cycle LED illuminate and then also listen for the relay click.

Also check the wire insulation and check that the the water is on to the valve (!!!). You asked if the valve needs to be under pressure: the solenoid will activate without water pressure, but you probably won't see water being distributed through the sprinkler heads without pressure.

If all of your valves share a common wire, and the common is connected at the valve trees, then you only need one common and you can connect it to any of the common terminals on EtherRain. The common terminals are all connected together internally. If your fifth valve is located away from the other four valves, you'll need to run both a zone wire and a common wire back to the controller.

Hope this helps.
Jim

[Mario23]

It was the common wire not getting good contact in the bundle of commons.
I connected a seperate common wire directly to the controller and it worked.
(note to self... Always remember Occam's razor!)
Tks