Resurrecting the Garden sprinkler hose timer for another season. The older the harder it gets!

[Don2222]

Hello
We have the B-Hyve smart watering hose timer which is a great system at a very reasonable cost.
Hose Timer Link
When I hooked it up and manually tested the on / off of the water flow, the solenoid valve stuck open and the sprinkler would not shut off!! $@&#%!!
Last year the solenoid was a bit sticky so I just did the manual water on the phone app a couple of times so the electric valve opened and closed properly to turn the water flow on and off. This year that did not fix it!! I did a little research on the web and it basically said that a build up of calcium from the water can cause the valve to be stuck. Not using it over the winter to exercise the valve Also most certainly did not help!
In order to get this B-Hyve Sprinkler timer going this year, I had to develop the Flow-Aid fix!!
Since I do have some experience in removing calcium deposits off of the heating elements in the newer on demand DHW panel, I used the same method with the hoses, bucket and sump pump hooked up to the sprinkler hose timer!
I just mixed a batch of non toxic calcium cleaner called J.C. Whitman Flow-Aide descaler with water and poured it into the bucket to clean the solenoid valve!! A mixture of vinegar and water will also clean it too if you run it thru a bit longer like an hour.
Flow Aide Link
I ran the descaler water mixture thru the hose timer with the sump pump from Harbor Freight for 0.5 hour and bingo bango, it fixed it.
Harbor Freight sump pump Link
One other thing I had to remember from last year since I run the sprinkler early every morning before I wake up is to leave the mobile phone on so the timer program will work! LOL

 

[Don2222]

Hello
Well the saga continues!!
The valve was fixed and working well with the phone app by using the manual on-off button in the app! However the phone scheduled program would not work after doing the software upgrade! So I watered manually for the first 2 mornings until I thought about it more! Since a new test scheduled worked fine, I finally deleted the old schedule and created a new one! So bingo that fixed it and the watering complete message came up in the iPhone notification list this morning!

 

[Don2222]

Hello
Here is another way to fix the stuck solonoid valve by taking the unit all apart.

Valve not turning off – Orbit Community

community.orbitonline.com

Which way do you think is easier?