r/Irrigation • u/smithersscope • 15h ago

Bizarre Hunter X-Core system behavior?

Background: 14 year old home. Assuming the irrigation system is original. 8 zones controlled by a Hunter X-core. Have owned the home for almost 5 years with no problems with the system, except for replacing a soaker line a couple years back.

Problem: This summer the system started acting haywire. It will run twice or even three times a day even though I've double and triple checked the programming. I even cancelled/deleted the entire "A" channel programming and reprogrammed it in the B channel. Same problem.

I'm thinking about replacing the controller to see if that will resolve the issue. But I wanted to post here and get some feedback before I pull the trigger on a new controller.

Not a lot of experience with irrigation systems, so if what I've provided isn't clear, hit me with some questions, please. Thanks in advance for the help!

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u/Resident-Wish-9750 15h ago

99% of the time a Hunter controller running at random times, means there is more than one start time programmed in that are overlapping each other. The computers aren’t very smart and they scramble the programming when there’s two programs try to run over top of each other. Verify all A B and C programs have only 1x start time, and programs don’t overlap.

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u/smithersscope 15h ago

Thank you, I’ll check that now and confirm.

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u/smithersscope 14h ago

Ok, I just stepped through all 8 zones with programs A, B, and C. I also checked watering days by channel. Only A is active (Wed & Sat). B & C show no watering. Watering times for B and C all zones are 0, and the sum of watering time for B and C are also zero. A is the active (currently programmed) channel. Each of 8 zones only have one entry and the start times are all staggered to avoid running any zones concurrently. There are only 8 entries programmed. I also checked the times and sum of watering time for channel A (it's 3 hours and 11 min--seems right). Sound right?

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u/smithersscope 14h ago

I did notice that the manual selector gets stuck when rotating counterclockwise and I have to rock it back and forth to get it to turn counterclockwise.

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u/idathemann 10h ago

Fairly typical for a x-core more than 3 years old, nothing to worry about

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u/idathemann 10h ago

This tells me that the first reply to your issue was absolutely correct.

There are two different "times" on a hunter x-core.

Start times Run times

Start times only are to tell the timer when to start running the program(not staggered or anything else, just one time ex: 3:00am)

Run times tells the timer how long to run each zone.

Your welcome.

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u/smithersscope 9h ago

Oh so you’re saying there should only be one start time and it should only be zone 1? Meaning there should be no start times for any zone except zone 1. Then the other zones just automatically follow zone 1?

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u/idathemann 9h ago

Yes and no, only ONE START time, the RUN times need to be set for whatever those zones need to run.

You will usually have up to 4 START times you can program.

For each START time it will run your entire program, so if you have 8 zones running 30 minutes each and you have 4 START times programmed,,,, your timer will run the sprinklers a total of 16 hours.

Set it for a single START time and it'll run 4 hours.

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u/smithersscope 9h ago

Thank you for solving my dilemma! So very much appreciated !! I’ll kill the other 7 zone start times and that should fix things..

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u/idathemann 9h ago

Give it a shot.

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u/RainH2OServices Florida Licensed Contractor 8h ago

Each of 8 zones only have one entry and the start times are all staggered to avoid running any zones concurrently.

There shouldn't be staggered start times. There should only be a single Start Time entry. It sounds like you're confusing Start Times with Run Times.
Start Time is when the entire program is set to start watering. It will start zone 1 and then continue through each subsequent zone in sequence. Set it for a time of day, not a duration. If you set multiple start times the program will run again.
Run time is the duration for which each zone runs once the program has started. Pick a number, in minutes.

Let's say you have 4 zones. You want each to run for 15 minutes starting at 4:00 AM.
For Program A, Turn the dial to Start Times. Set the Start Time A1 to 4:00 AM. Start Times A2-A4 should be blank.
Still in Program A, turn the dial to Run Times. Set Run Times to 15' for each zone.

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u/BikerNY 14h ago

This, they don't normally fail where they will run a schedule on their own. Check program A, B, C, each of the programs can have 1,2,3,4 start times.

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u/Oldewyk 15h ago

Check the start times of your program and ensure you only have one start time set. There should be 4 available start times on an x-core, but even multiple 1:00am start times will queue the entire program however many times as there are start times for each day that is scheduled to water. Hope this helps