Brighton Reticulation

The purpose of the Common Wire in an Irrigation System

Every irrigation has a common wire that connects all of the solenoids together and in most cases it is a black wire, as this is the colour most commonly used. The common wire is found in the ‘c’ terminal and is vital to the systems operation. If a common wire gets cut then all of the solenoids that it connects together will be out of action. Its usual to have one strand of multi core wire serving the front of a house and another strand serving the rear, so if you find that all of your rear solenoids have stopped […]

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Rain Sensor Wet or Dry?…

If you have a Holman 4/6/9 controller and the display looks ok, but it doesn’t seem to be working then the first thing to check out is whether the rain sensor display says ‘rain sensor wet’ or ‘rain sensor dry’. If it displays a ‘wet’ message then it means that there is no 24v power going to the controller and therefore no power to operate solenoids. There are a few things that could cause this: 1) check your RCDs in your meter box as if one of these has tripped then you won’t have power to the box. 2) check […]

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How Many Volts Does My Retic Need?

I was working on a friend’s place recently with a strange fault that was proving difficult to track down. The solenoid would come on and off intermitently. It would work 10 times in a row and then fail. There was power (27V) coming from the control box but at the solenoid the power varied between 22-26v according to my multimeter. The power wire to the solenoid had been joined several times before it reached the solenoid and after eliminating any other possibilities (faulty coil/controller) I could only conclude that there was a problem with the wire run. I ran a […]

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My Retic Won’t Come On

  This week I went back to a job I first looked at a couple of months back. I stopped in on my way home to see why this particular system wasn’t working. It was late in the afternoon and more than I had time for so I declined to take the job on right then. So when we got back yesterday I knew what we were doing. I had already tested for power at the Master Valve and there was nothing there. However what was really odd was that there was intermittent power. I know because I brushed the […]

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Only One Station Comes on… What Have I Done?

I went to a job today where the client told me that they were on a shared bore and that only one of their stations would come on. The pump would come on when the rear lawn was running but not on the other 3 stations… strange… What was going on? When I got there I also discovered that he had installed a new control box and wired it up himself. I assumed all this was done correctly, but after half an hour of testing various things it dawned on me that what he had done was wire the master/pump wire […]

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Orbit Controllers ‘Off Power’ symbol

  I got a call to look at this retic system where the control box was displaying the ‘off power’ water droplet symbol. (see the left side of the display) I wasn’t sure what it meant or how it got there and the manual didn’t mention it. A brief google search suggested it may be the  box blowing a fuse and protecting itself against a faulty solenoid coil. I called Scott at Total Eden and then he put me on to the tech heads at HR who weren’t totally sure either. So I began to test it and discovered there […]

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Low Voltage Reticulation Wiring

  Reticulation wiring that leaves the control box is not dangerous. As a general rule if you feel anything when you touch the wires it will be a light buzzing in your finger tips. That’s because its low voltage – around 24v and it isn’t enough to hurt you. The Control box has an inbuilt transformer that reduces the current from 240v so that any wires beyond the controller are safe. NOTE: DO NOT TOUCH THE 240V WIRES INSIDE THE CONTROL BOX! That’s also why wires usually aren’t laid in conduit.  Most installers will tape the wire to the underside […]

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