Need Help With Satellite Problem! Cancel The title field is required!

1. Beebe Blaine E

   
   7/26/2013 7:07 AM

   I am currently having a problem with two of my Toro LTC satellites. I have the older metal box satellites originally from the 2.0 Network. Usually a popped 4 amp or 2 amp fuse would mean a bad solenoid and I've always been able to just manually run through my stations to find the head that trips it. For the last week, two of my satellites have been popping the 4 amp fuse every night I water. I have ran manual programs from just those satellites, ran multi-manual, and have turned heads on manually from module switch....nothing pops!! I figure nothing has changed in my program setup so there shouldn't be any issues with overloading the satellite with too many stations turning on at once or programs overlapping. I have hit a wall here and getting tired of having to manually water these two holes every morning. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated gents!
   
   Thanks,
   
   Blaine Beebe

   
   
   
   
2. Andrew Cross

   

   5 posts
   
   7/26/2013 10:07 AM

   Take Ohm readings of each station. We had a box doing this and this is how I tracked it down.
   
   If you have older style Toro solenoids the reading should be about 29 ohms per solenoid. If you have any heads with a Spike Guard solenoid it should be 29K ohms, this is if you are testing a solenoid in your hand obviously you get a little bit of a range if your testing from the box.
   
   If you have stations doubled up the reading will be halved (can't think of that right now)
   
   So the typical field readings we get, one lead to station wire other lead to common, is 31 ohms on a single station or 16-19 ohms on a doubled station.
   
   I had a reading of 6.2 on our station 15, separated the wires and had 29 ohms on one wire (obviously good) and 2 ohms on the other (obviously bad).
   
   I had been told in an irrigation troubleshooting class that you should take ohm readings at the beginning of every season and that way you have that info when and if you encounter a problem like this.
   
   Hope this helps!!!

   
   
   
   
3. Michael Shriner

   

   0 posts
   
   7/27/2013 1:07 PM

   Hey Blaine,
   
   I had a similar problem a few years back. It ended up being a nicked wire. Days of frustration. I would run test after test and everything would be great. The next morning a blown fuse. I set up a separate program to run first thing in the morning to duplicate the night watering time and sat at the box until it popped. Turns out we didn't run the tests long enough to saturate the soil, ground the wire and blow the fuse. All of the ohm tests read good until it got wet!
   
   I don't know know if this is your problem but I hope this helps.

   
   
   
   
4. Matthew Neff

   

   0 posts
   
   7/28/2013 2:07 PM

   Andrew Cross said: Take Ohm readings of each station. We had a box doing this and this is how I tracked it down.
   
   If you have older style Toro solenoids the reading should be about 29 ohms per solenoid. If you have any heads with a Spike Guard solenoid it should be 29K ohms, this is if you are testing a solenoid in your hand obviously you get a little bit of a range if your testing from the box.
   
   If you have stations doubled up the reading will be halved (can't think of that right now)
   
   So the typical field readings we get, one lead to station wire other lead to common, is 31 ohms on a single station or 16-19 ohms on a doubled station.
   
   I had a reading of 6.2 on our station 15, separated the wires and had 29 ohms on one wire (obviously good) and 2 ohms on the other (obviously bad).
   
   I had been told in an irrigation troubleshooting class that you should take ohm readings at the beginning of every season and that way you have that info when and if you encounter a problem like this.
   
   Hope this helps!!!

   
   
   Important to note when checking solenoids from the box that if one of the solenoids in a paired station is a high surge solenoid and the other is standard, the resistance reading will be all over the place and will basically make no sense. You might think something is wrong when really it's not.

   
   
   
   
5. Beebe Blaine E

   
   7/30/2013 7:07 AM

   Guys,
   
   Thank you for the recommendations! Andrew the Ohm testing worked out perfectly! Found out that two stations had bad solenoids but apparently they were either not totally shot yet or just didn't want to pop the fuse when I manually turned them on. Dug up both heads in each station, tested the solenoid right at the head and found out which one was bad. Had a reading of 4.5 Ohms on one and 6.2 on the other. Can't believe I've never heard of this trick, can't thank you enough!
   
   Thanks again,
   
   Blaine Beebe