Question
QUESTION: Jim,

Having a problem...sprinkler system has worked fine for years and now all of a sudden, I can't get any zone to work. I'll try to give you the most information I can.

Hunter ICC controller...we have 12 zones but I can only find 4 valve boxes in the yard. Controller appears to be functioning...when a station is manually turned on, putting a meter with black on the "C" wire and red on the station wire reads 26 volts (although when doing that, all the stations read 26 volts...i.e. if station 1 is supposed to be on, stations 2-12 also all read 26 volts).

I don't believe there is a master valve...the port labeled P/MV has no wire connecting to it.

I am in the southern US...meter by the street. There is a valve on the meter, another valve handle right past the meter (a red faucet type that is actually above ground) and then in a large box near that, what appears to be the main cut off...large single line with two large yellow handles).

May be too much information but wanted you to know everything. Thanks for your help!

ANSWER: Hey Randy, more than likely you are having problems with the controller if all the zones are reading 26 volts. What is happening is that all the valves are trying to open, and you won't have enough pressure to run them all. First try and take the battery out of the controller, and disconnect the 110volt power supply for about a minute, and then try powering the unit back up without the battery and see if only one valve will work at a time. If you are still having issues, I would suggest replacing the controller. Even though you only have 4 valve boxes, there might be more than one valve in each box. Good luck and let me know if you need anymore help. Thanks and have a great day.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: OK...thought you were on the right track with the loss of pressure due to trying to run all stations at once, but I did something that I think eliminates that. I disconnected the wiring for all the stations except for one and then tried to turn that station on. I got nothing, but then again, maybe I broke the circuit by disconnecting the rest of the stations...I didn't put the meter back on it to check.

Before doing this, I did try resetting the controller like you suggested, which did not work. One note I will make I turned one station on via the controller (and obviously  no water was coming out) but with it still on, checked the water meter and there did appear to be some water flowing according to the meter and as best I could tell, no water sources in the house were on.

I am just baffled too. If I had a broken pipe before the valves, I would expect to see the meter running even with the system off. If a pipe was broken after the valves, I would expect the other stations to work. Was my logic sound in trying to test one station by disconnecting the others, or did I break the circuit? Is there a way to apply power to the valves without using the controller to test whether the controller really is the issue?

One other thing I forgot to mention is I do have a rain sensor on this system but have set the switch to "bypass" while trying to figure this out.

I am very grateful for your time. Thanks again.

Answer
Hey Randy, you did the right thing by disconnecting the other valves, and as long as the common wire was still hooked up the circuit should work fine. You might also want to try taking another field wire from, lets say station(valve) #2 and disconnecting valve #1 and touching the #2 wire to valve #1 terminal to see if any of the valves work off of the controller. Also, at the valves themselves, most valves will have what is called a bleed screw. What this bleed screw does, is when the screw is un-screwed, water will bleed out of this port, and the valve will open up without the aid of the controller. You can also un-screw the solenoid on a valve, and it will also open the valve without the use of the controller. You might want to try this on a valve, just to make sure that the main valve supplying water to the system is not turned off, and you are indeed getting water to the valves. You can also buy a valve actuator from an irrigation supply store, and with this you can hook this device directly to the 2 wires coming from the solenoid, and it will put out 22 to 26 volts and activate the solenoid. You might also want to check your voltage at the solenoids on the valves to determine if you are receiving the proper voltage at the solenoids. If none of the valves are working, you either have a problem with the common wire, your controller, or the water is not getting to the valves. You could also hook up 2 wires directly to the controller, 1 on the #1 valve terminal, and the other wire on the C(common) terminal and then take these wires out to a solenoid on one of the valves and making sure you are getting the proper voltage at the end of the wire (22 to 26 volts) touch one wire to one side of the solenoid wire, and the other wire to the opposite solenoid wire, and as long as the solenoid is good, the valve should open. Try this and let me know if you need anymore help, thanks and have a great day.