I have a 5 valve dripper system system connected to a Raindial rd600 timer.

In one box is 2 valves and in the other box 3 valves. They are connected to the same water line but it looks as though the 3 valve box is newer. I'm not the original owner of the property so I'm not sure about the setup although I can take pictures, describe, etc.

Anyway, I have the water turned off from the side of the house to the irrigation system. When I turn the water on valve 1 is open and i pushing water through. In other words, all of the drippers that are connected to valve 1 will start dripping water.

On the 2 through 5 I have to press a little lever near the solenoid to turn them on. Once I turn them on if I flip the lever again it doesn't turn them off, I have to go to the side of the house and turn the water off to the irrigation system.

Further, when I use the Raindial to manually turn on, for example, valve 5 for 2 minutes it doesn't turn it on and the timer on the dial for valve 5 goes back to off. In other words, it doesn't seem as though the solenoid is doing its job even though I have manually taken valve 2 solenoid off, hooked up dirrectly to common and valve 2 in the Raindial station and I can hear the solenoid and see the end flick. I've also replaced one of the valve solenoids with a brand new one to see if that was the issue and still the issue continues.

So bottom line I have a few issues here and my knowledge of this isn't at the level to know what is normal, what is wrong and what to do to diagnose. I am posting this rather than paying someone to come out because I like to learn and want to be able to handle this and future projects myself.

Here are the ultimate run down issues:

1) When I turn the water on from the side of the house to the irrigation system that feeds to valve 1 through 5 the water goes through valve 1 into its' attached drippers to start dripping water. I have replaced the solenoid and taken apart the valve to see if there were any rocks but no debris. I thought that all valves are "off" by default and so it shouldn't automatically start dripping from valve 1 when water is turned on.

2) When I use the Raindial timer and pick a valve, say for example, 5 (or 2, or 3, doesn't matter) and manually set it for a few minutes and press start sometimes I hear a flick but ultimately the Raindial then shows OFF for that valve and the water is not flowing through that appropriate valve drippers. I know this is not normal because years ago I would do this when I was locating all of the drippers per valve and the timer would count down for that valve to when it will close it. I have replaced the Raindial fuse.

Any help, suggestions, links, etc would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

This post was edited by GardenViewer on Mon, Oct 28, 13 at 14:10