Rain Detected Notifications - continious

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W Alastair

July 06, 2017 23:02

So I have connected a simple RainBird rain sensor using the aux connectors on the right side of the controller and it's working correctly. The one problem I see is with notifications turned on, it sends them every 10 seconds or so even though the rain sensor state has not changed. I eventually had to turn them off since the sensor takes several hours to reset as it dries out.

Can the notifications for "rain detected" rather only notify if the state changes and not continuously?

Thanks.

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  W Alastair July 06, 2017 23:05

  

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  RainMachine Support July 07, 2017 04:45

  Hi, W Alastair
  That shouldn't happen if the Rain Sensor did not engage.
  Somehow the RainMachine gets the ON state of the Rain Sensor. Do you remember seeing the red notification restriction bottom band when this mobile notification was sent, or the mobile app or the device itself (RainMachine Touch HD) didn't show that notification on display?

  What is the sensor name and type?
  We will need to check this.
  
  Thank you.
  RainMachine Support

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  W Alastair July 07, 2017 16:04

  The red notification was displaying, there were 2 since we have restrictions on certain days. However even when no restriction were present, when the Rain Sensor circuit is opened (rain detected) the flood of notification was still an issue.

  Rain sensor is Rain Bird CPRSDBEX Wired Rain Sensor which uses a micro-switch mechanism:

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005MICVDY/

   

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  Jeff Benjamin July 07, 2017 17:07

  After reading more about this sensor - it is normally closed which means when it detects rains the switch will open. Due to some cheapness in switches water can get into the switch and cause some conductivity where the RM thinks the switch is now closed again and the rain sensor detected no rain. This can cycle back and forth, the RM thinks the switch is turning on and off so you get multiple messages. This is also not good for the RM. This seems to be a common problem when connecting these types of sensors to the RM.

  This sensor does not appear to be able to be wired Normally Open, which could/should solve the problem as the switch would be open when dry.

  I currently use a wireless sensor that has its own receiver module that does not have these 'Water' characteristics.

  This is an issue with the RM - it might be able to be fixed by adding a pull-up/down resistor of the correct value on the input to the RM, but I have no schematics to determine what that would be or by adding a 24volt relay that is not so susceptive to little amounts of current as an in-be-tween device. Sold an Amazon for about $7.

  Maybe someone from the company can shed some light on this subject as it is becoming more of a problem in the design of the input for this sensor. 

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