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1. Daniel Stover

   

   0 posts
   
   6/20/2011 1:06 PM

   current rain bird problems unresolved
   
   via freedom handheld - heads assigned to turn on will both comeback as a good code, and show that they are running within stratus 2, but take several minutes to actually turn on in the field. The major concern is that stations that I assign to run for 5 minutes might only run 3 minutes with the delay, but the computer still reports a 5 minute runtime.
   
   via freedom handheld - heads assigned to turn on will turn on fine, but to turn off that same station requires several minutes. I have found that through multiple on and off codes to the same station can acheive this slightly quicker. Again, when an off code is sent to the computer, both the handheld report a correct code, and the computer reports the station being turned off...when infact its still on in the field.
   
   via freedom handheld - sometimes multiple stations turned on within the same hole can result in a "pause" on a previously running head. So if i have turned on two stations for 8 minutes, one of these two stations can decide to turn off for a few minutes and then turn itself back on. Major concern being that the computer thinks that both heads had run the correct 8 minutes, when in fact heads that have "paused" are running less then that. The places on the golf course it is doing this are in dry areas, so I can only assume that this is doing this at night during the scheduled runtimes as well.
   
   via freedom handheld - turning on of one station can result in multiple coming on, not even within the same area. For example I have turned on a fwy head and a green head popped on with it, no report from the computer of doing this, but in fact it is on in the field. When this happens the only thing I can do to shut it off is turn the satelite off and then on again, radio codes will not work at all.
   
   have also once turned on one station with the handheld and an entire fairway came on, again...computer only reported that one station being turned on.
   
   I think that sums it about up...also I have switched out MIMs completely, same problem. Rain bird seems to have a go to answer for me just to "check the wire between the cmoputer and the freedom" or "raise the antenna"...both impossile since the computer always reports my codes. Anybody else out there having or have had similar problems or have a toro system they would like to donate, ill gladly instal it here.
   
   I should also mention that our power on the island is extremely bad, so we have had to rig up our entire rainbird central onto a massive contraption...but it gets 110-115v and a pure sign wave.

   
   
   
   
2. Kinney Brian

   
   6/20/2011 1:06 PM

   that does not sound like fun, coupla ? for you:
   1. electric or hyraulic?
   2. are the controllers in field getting good voltage when mulitiple boxes are under load?
   3. what kind of boxes? par +? what rainbird program? stratus?
   i have alot of diagnostic experience with my older par + with freedom and stratus..maybe can help?
   
   sounds like bad hydraulic pressure to me right off the bat, if you are electric, i would tend to think the problems are with pwer issues in the field boxes...since the cpu is reporting correctly. also in the delay aspect of firing up, my pump station will only fire one pump at a time and has a delay when another pump has to fire.

   
   
   
   
3. Daniel Stover

   

   0 posts
   
   6/20/2011 2:06 PM

   1. electric
   2. have not yet tried this out, but these problems can occur with me only running on head on the entire golf course...i dont need to have multiple heads running to start to get problems
   3. par + ES, stratus 2
   
   i have stratus coming on @ 250gpm intervals every few minutes with a 1200gpm cap (no delay during intial fire up), and the station delay tends to happen on certain holes more then others
   
   
   
   that does not sound like fun, coupla ? for you:
   1. electric or hyraulic?
   2. are the controllers in field getting good voltage when mulitiple boxes are under load?
   3. what kind of boxes? par +? what rainbird program? stratus?
   i have alot of diagnostic experience with my older par + with freedom and stratus..maybe can help?
   
   sounds like bad hydraulic pressure to me right off the bat, if you are electric, i would tend to think the problems are with pwer issues in the field boxes...since the cpu is reporting correctly. also in the delay aspect of firing up, my pump station will only fire one pump at a time and has a delay when another pump has to fire.

   
   
   
   
4. Moore Thomas O

   
   6/20/2011 2:06 PM

   I know your pain. I have experienced some of these same things. What seems to help(though only short term) is to make sure you turn off the computer that runs as central, and let it re-boot. This is something that we do weekly now, and though the problems have not gone away, we do experience less headaches overall. It is just clearing out everything in memory, and starts with a "clean slate". Hope it works for ya.

   
   
   
   
5. Daniel Stover

   

   0 posts
   
   6/20/2011 2:06 PM

   I will give the shutdown/reboot a shot. I will add that I grew the golf course in with the satelites only, only up til a year ago have i had central control, and thats when my problems began. Back then it was much much worse, sections of fwys would turn on by themselves, during the day it would get golfers wet, and during the night shutdown the pumpstation. Thankfully rain bird techs have helped me get it to the point it is now...but still far from right.

   
   
   
   
6. Brian Lentz

   

   0 posts
   
   6/20/2011 7:06 PM

   I had similar problems when we were doing a growin and we setup our central in a small shed. We were running off a generator at the time, the satalites worked fine but the MIM didn't like the power coming off the generator. We ended up buying a DC to AC comverter to insure the power was clean to the MIM. We installed a 12V deep cycle battery in the shed to connect to the converter and then connected a 12V battery charger to the generator feed. This insured a full battery and allowed us to shut down the generator when not in use. All problems were solved after we cleaned up the power to the MIM. We have since moved into our maintenance facility and everything is on the grid and still working perfectly. This is one of two systems we have for our 54 hole facility and I wouldn't trade it for any other brand.
   
   Brian Lentz
   Lakewood Ranch G&CC
   Fla.

   
   
   
   
7. Donald Johnson

   

   0 posts
   
   6/21/2011 5:06 AM

   I have experience some of the problems that you have with the Freedom. Send a good code, get a response back that the code was understood, but a different station would turn on somewhere else on the golf course. My only solution was to raise the antenna at the central and install antennas on the satellites that were the furthest from the central.
   
   Years ago working with a Toro system we had bad/unclean power to the satellites which resulted in many problems. (Ones that Toro had never heard of happening before). The voltage would drop only for a split second at a time. Unless you sat there and watch with the volt meter for hours on end you would never know there was a problem. I install a 5KVA, UPS to clean up the power and to keep the voltage from dropping. The problems with the controllers improved dramatically once they started to receive stable power.
   
   Don Johnson, CGCS
   The Allegria
   Cairo, Egypt

   
   
   
   
8. James Smith

   

   112 posts
   
   6/21/2011 7:06 AM

   Do not know if this is the problem or not because I have Stratus 1 but with Stratus 1 you cannot run it on any other operating system other then windows 98 without having odd problems occurring. What operating system are you using? I think I remember them telling me that Startus two can only run off of windows xp at the time I was thinking about upgrading to stratus 2. I ended up keeping an old dedicated system for my irrigation system with windows 98 on it with little problems.
   
   There excuse was that they were not going to update their software for the newer versions of the operating systems because they did not want customers to be adding other software that may have conflicts with theirs. What really sucks is that I cannot buy a printer that runs off of windows 98 anymore and cannot print my irrigation cycles anymore.

   
   
   
   
9. Daniel Stover

   

   0 posts
   
   6/21/2011 9:06 AM

   I have tried the shutdown and reboot this morning and went to my trouble holes and checked with the handheld. It seems to be working perfectly now, I did not have any of the same problems that I have been having. Must be something in the way the rainbird software is setup, never had any issues like this with toro.
   
   I know that the rain bird system is extremely sensitive with power, I have attached a picture of our setup that we put together to create clean power...get ready to laugh.

   
   
   
   
10. Kinney Brian

    
    6/21/2011 2:06 PM

    Hey ,pics are worth a thousand words, amazing what we have to do sometimes, i really wonder if anyone other than us would ever figure out how to do our jobs on a daily basis. Irrigation is the lifeblood of a course and seems that no one understands the intense minor things we must pay attention to everyday and know how to solve immediately or course conditions suffer. I thought all along it would/sounds like power problem. Hopefully you can keep diagnosing and figure it out permanently. Also, I don't know if your irrigation computer is hooked to the inter net, but mine is and i unplug the cable each night, seems like all the updates occur overnight and screw with the irrigation cycle....best of luck man.

    
    
    
    
11. Daniel Stover

    

    0 posts
    
    6/21/2011 2:06 PM

    Brian, It seems i spoke too soon, I went out and hit some hot spots this afternoon, with the same problems happening again. What is the voltage you are powering your mim with? I remember when we first hooked it up we had 120-130v and there were way more problems, now its always in between 110-115v, wondering if i should get it lower.
    
    I have also noticed the updates screwing up the cycle, good idea with the internet cable at night.

    
    
    
    
12. Daniel Stover

    

    0 posts
    
    6/21/2011 2:06 PM

    Another thing I forgot to add is that we have a crappy old 50hz generator that i used to program stratus 2 and test the system and it never skipped a beat. Things turned on and off without problem. But yet with 110v-115v pure sign wave it doesnt run very well.

    
    
    
    
13. Homme David R

    
    6/21/2011 7:06 PM

    dannysoda said: Brian, It seems i spoke too soon, I went out and hit some hot spots this afternoon, with the same problems happening again. What is the voltage you are powering your mim with? I remember when we first hooked it up we had 120-130v and there were way more problems, now its always in between 110-115v, wondering if i should get it lower.
    
    I have also noticed the updates screwing up the cycle, good idea with the internet cable at night.

    
    
    
    I have worked with a Rainbird system in the past and I recall the MIM operating on lower voltage. 22volts perhaps. It definitely does not run on the same 110volts that the satellites themselves require. The communication wire is a separate feed.

    
    
    
    
14. Brian Lentz

    

    0 posts
    
    6/21/2011 9:06 PM

    I'm assuming that the pure sin power is running the computer and the mim? A normal 110-115vac input power to the mim is standard, the output is low voltage and will swing up and down by several volts. Are all the channel Id's correct in the faceplates? I know with stratus you can have more than one faceplate with the same ID which can cause issues. I would still lean towards a power issue, what you are talking about sounds exactly what I was the going through. It would work perfectly after a reboot then started acting up later in day.
    As for the updates the computer is trying to do at night, you can set them to update in the early afternoon, I have mine set for 11:30am.
    
    Brian Lentz

    
    
    
    
15. Daniel Stover

    

    0 posts
    
    6/22/2011 8:06 AM

    I'm assuming that the pure sin power is running the computer and the mim? A normal 110-115vac input power to the mim is standard, the output is low voltage and will swing up and down by several volts. Are all the channel Id's correct in the faceplates? I know with stratus you can have more than one faceplate with the same ID which can cause issues. I would still lean towards a power issue, what you are talking about sounds exactly what I was the going through. It would work perfectly after a reboot then started acting up later in day.
    As for the updates the computer is trying to do at night, you can set them to update in the early afternoon, I have mine set for 11:30am.
    
    Brian Lentz
    
    
    Brian, I will test this out again...but yes I think you might be right with the later in the day thing. I dont know if stratus 2 is just building all kinds of junk within its memory during the day or what. Our pure sign power is only for the mim/freedom, the dell computer works with the normal power no problem. You say what you WERE going through...what have you done to change it?

    
    
    
    
16. Brian Lentz

    

    0 posts
    
    6/22/2011 7:06 PM

    We put our system on the converter, we also had the computer on it as well that solved our issues. One other thing to check is the black box, it shows all operations going out of the computer. You have to click on the lock on page 3 and enter the password (4321). It then unlocks additional options. If the mystery stations are shown in there then it must be something in the computer causing the issues. If not then it's in the MIM or field boxes, have you rebooted the MIM lately? Don't give up Rainbird is a great system I'm sure you will work it out in due time.
    
    Brian L.

    
    
    
    
17. Daniel Stover

    

    0 posts
    
    7/5/2011 9:07 AM

    Brian, thanks for the continued help. Sorry for the delay, ive been on vacation.
    
    I have not rebooted the mim for quite some time...are you doing this often?
    
    Our computer is not on the converter power, it is only on the power from the building. Should i Try to move everything over?
    
    I really dont knwo what im looking for in here but I do see that at several times this morning Stratus 2 says that it is "Moving Pump Capacity for pump 1 down to 0". I dont know if this is just because there isnt anything running in the field or what...other then that i dont see anything odd

    
    
    
    
18. Daniel Stover

    

    0 posts
    
    7/5/2011 1:07 PM

    Tried out all things mentioned above, even replaced the cable going from the computer to the mim, nothing seemed to fix my problem. Then i hooked up the trusty generator with not so steady power and it worked perfectly...not any of my old problems. The inverter is supposed to be a pure sign wave...but now im not so sure it is .