My neightbor has a lawn sprinkler system using a Rain Dial controller. The controller won't turn on any of the five valves.
I switch the controller to Run/Manual, swtich to a specific valve, put run time that valve and hit the Manual start button. Instead of turning on that valve, I get a flashing OFF. According to the manual this indicates the solenoid is shorted or there is some other electrical problem.
However, I get the same result on all valves, and it seems unlikely that there is a problem with five valves located in different parts of the yard. It seems more likely to me that something is wrong with the controller itself - a transistor ror diode blown, or something like that.
Another indicator is that the display flashes all the time, which it didn't do before.
The battery seems to be ok - the time is correct, and the battery measures 8.7V on my meter. That should be close enough, I would think.
I guess I'm hoping that someone else here has seen this problem and knows what causes it.
Would it be safe to send 24VAC directly to the valves? The current wiring is: one hot (?) wire going to each of the five valves, and one wire that appears to be a common neutral or ground - this one goes through a rain gauge switch. (I shorted across the rain gauge, but that didn't help, so that's not the problem.) If 24VAC sent to a valve's hot wire and the common neutral makes it operate, then that should mean the controller is the problem. If that doesn't work, then there is some other problem out underground somewhere.
Any ideas?