Live Streaming – Decoder Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting a two-wire decoder control system is easy – once you know what to look for in the wire path.  The process is not intuitive, and that is where this training class can help.  We will cover the operation of the two-wire path and the steps required to identify the three main causes of failure on the wire path, and open, a short, and a ground fault.

Course Outline

Unit 1 Decoder system wire path components

Unit 2 Decoder functionality

Unit 3 Troubleshooting an open circuit

Unit 4 Troubleshooting a short circuit

Unit 5 Troubleshooting a ground fault

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Explain the functionality of a decoder

2. Troubleshoot and locate an open circuit on a two-wire path

3. Troubleshoot and locate a short circuit on a two-wire path

4. Troubleshoot and locate a ground fault on a two-wire path

Suggested Prerequisites

Participants should have a general understanding of electricity and irrigation controller operation before attending this training session.

Before the class session, each participant should have the following items:

  • A 120 VAC outlet to power an irrigation controller
  • A decoder controller with a pigtail plug (a Rain Bird ESP-LXD will be used for demonstration during the class session).
  • A multimeter with an inductive clamp capable of testing milliamps with a precision of at 1.0mA or lower (an Armada Technologies model PRO95 multimeter will be used for demonstration during the class session)
  • Several decoders, two-wire, and wire splices