Rain Dial 600ext problems

Hi,

i have been have some problems with this controller now -so ihave replaced the master valve as no water was comming out of any valves and re-spliced all of the connections at every valve to eliminate any electrical problems with 3m scotchlocks. Everything was working fine for a few weeks until today -I tried to manually turn on the controller and it automatically goes to "OFF" and then starts to blink. The LCD display itself now seem to continuously flicker -alsmost like when a watch batterry starts to die. Thre battery is brand new.

Is it a controller problem or valve connection or something else. How can i check without disconnecting all the wires at the valves.

All help appreciated as my garden is dying

The simplest test works with a spare solenoid. Turn one station on then touch the wires from your spare solenoid to the station terminal and the common terminal at the same time. If the solenoid clicks then the problem is not the controller. I have seen this type of problem before and it is usually a bad controller and needs to be replaced. Also you can check if there is a reset button in the controller, this will sometimes cure the problem.