How To Wire Up Your Solenoids

Its easy once you have done it a few times…

So I’m not sure if this will make good sense but here goes…

In your control box there are terminals marked ‘C’ for common, ‘M’ or ‘P’ for master/pump and then there are the numbers for solenoids 1-6 etc.

Ok – so assuming you are running off the water mains you will need to run the M/P wire to your master valve. It doesn’t matter which wire it connects to on the solenoid. (This is the case for all solenoids) Usually this is the red wire and if you stick with that it will help anyone who comes along to repair it later.

The ‘C’ needs to be connected to one of the wires on every solenoid. It is ‘common’ so you need to make sure it secured at every solenoid otherwise nothing may work.  This is usually black in colour.

Then simply decide which solenoid will be station ‘1’, ‘2’ etc.

I like to use multicore wire with different colours allocated to different solenoids. You can use one long roll of wire all the same colour but you need to make sure you know what’s going where because once its buried its going to be tricky!

Once you have a ‘power’ wire and a common wire to every solenoid you should be able to run the system. That’s the brief version… For help with any of these issues call Andrew on 0400044236 or email brightonreticulation@gmail.com

How To Wire Up Your Solenoids

14 thoughts on “How To Wire Up Your Solenoids

  • Pingback: Brighton Reticulation & Turf » Blog Archive » How To Wire a Solenoid

  • January 9, 2013 at 6:55 am
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    cheers mate,good to see someone take the time to make peoples lives a little easier

  • January 1, 2015 at 5:18 am
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    Thanks for being a decent bloke. My problem is I pump from a bore so l don’t get the bit about the master valve but there appears to be one as I’ve got 7 solenoid and only 6 stations. .put a new Holman dial exy in but after checking and cleaning all solenoid nothing works. Any ideas please? Thanks ron

  • January 1, 2015 at 10:47 am
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    One wire will go to the pump m/v terminal to operate the pump. If there is no wire in here then the pump won’t start and you won’t have any water

    Also if you get the wrong wire in there then it won’t work either

  • April 13, 2015 at 8:17 am
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    thats great.
    can the C wire leave from the controller twice?
    say if you had a solenoid left side of the house, one right side and your master and controller in between.
    or how would your C run?

    Thanks heaps

    Matt

  • September 23, 2015 at 10:54 pm
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    Yes – it can – no problem

  • February 26, 2016 at 4:30 am
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    Hi I have just had to replace my Controller.
    There was two wiring systems in place. Origionally there was a system with 4 stations – then I added 4 more.
    One with muti coloured wires (new)- the other with red, black, green & blue.(old)
    System worked great.
    Now with new controller I must have mixed the old wires. Is there a fools way to sort out the mess.
    Rgds Graham

  • February 26, 2016 at 8:23 am
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    Hi Graham

    Sorry – not easily – a bit of trial and error and a process of deduction!

  • February 23, 2017 at 12:23 pm
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    Wired up 4 stations Plus main solenoid but only number one station will work even though it goes through the whole cycle. Any suggestions

  • February 23, 2017 at 1:45 pm
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    I’d say your master and common are back to front or the station wire that is coming on is the common

  • June 28, 2017 at 2:49 am
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    Hi there,
    I have just one 220v water solenoid that has one red wire and one green. Can I wire this to normal plug and plug it into an exteriour power point so I can just turn this one when I want to?
    Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you – Glenn

  • July 16, 2017 at 4:23 am
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    Hi Andrew, one of my seven solenoids is always open, I replaced it with a new solenoid thinking that it was faulty. It’s still allows the water flow through even though it’s had the wires disconnected at the solenoid. Can you give me some idea what might be wrong? Cheers Les

  • July 18, 2017 at 12:58 am
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    Hi

    Either you put it in back to front or you have left it ‘on’ when it should be off

  • July 18, 2017 at 12:58 am
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    Solenoids are 24v so I wouldn’t!

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