Imagine a scenario with me. You opened up your wallet and poured out a bunch of money for an irrigation system so that you would have total control over watering your yard and plants. Or maybe you didn’t even have the irrigation system installed, yourself. Maybe you just bought the house, partly because the realtor mentioned that it has an automatic watering system.
That sounded awfully convenient at the time. Nobody wants to get all tangled up, dragging a hose and manual yard sprinkler around the yard. That would be both boring and frustrating — and worse, it’s WASTEFUL! When you turn on a hose sprinkler and walk away, you are nearly guaranteeing that you will forget that you turned it on in the first place, and you will end up wasting hundreds or thousands of gallons of water.
That’s bad for the environment AND bad for your wallet. So, put the hose sprinkler away and learn how to run your Hunter Pro-C manually.
NOTE: This is a tutorial for how to run your Hunter Pro-C manually, rather than automatically. If you found your way to IrrigationSkill.com looking for the Hunter Pro-C Owner’s Manual, you can find it here: OLDER PC-300 version with green buttons here. And the NEWER PC-400 blue-buttoned version can be found here.
Before I forget to mention it, there are more efficient and convenient options for smart irrigation controllers and timers that allow you to do everything mentioned in this article with fewer steps and hassles by using an app on your smartphone. You may want to consider upgrading your old Hunter Pro-C to one of the many smart controllers that are currently available. But, if you’d rather be a wise and frugal genius (AKA a cheap bastard) like me, then read on and learn how to run your Hunter Pro-C manually.
The Hunter Pro-C controller is nearly 20 years old, and has had several different iterations over that time period. The older PC-300 is extremely similar to the newer PC-400 controller. I’m taking this tutorial chronologically and starting with the older PC-300, but if you have the newer PC-400, it is worth reading through the PC-300 tutorial, and later I’ll include a specific version for the newer PC-400.
So, here you are: You’re standing in your garage or your basement, in front of your old Hunter Pro-C sprinkler timer, and you are more than a little confused. It has an helpful sticker telling you how to run the irrigation system in manual mode.
And you want to run the system manually. But not the ENTIRE system. You want to target a specific section, or zone, of the irrigation system. Is that possible? Why yes, it is possible. Very possible.
Why would you not want to run the whole, entire irrigation system? There are plenty of reasons that you might want to target a specific area (or “zone”) of your yard or landscaping to water, without having to soak the entirety of your property.
Firstly, it is far more efficient and less wasteful to engage in targeted watering. You may not think it’s a big deal to just run the entire system and be done with it, but here at Irrigation Skill, we are all about water conservation. And running your entire irrigation system when you are really just aiming to water one section, is definitely not conserving water.
Or maybe you recently planted some new flowers and they are looking a little wilted, despite the fact that it recently rained quite a lot. If this is the case, you may eventually want to add more time to that zone during its automatic watering program. But maybe not. Maybe this is just a one or two time situation where you need a little extra water in one specific zone on your property.
The scenario I commonly find myself in, personally, is that I really don’t care if most of my yard gets watered. I’m fortunate in that my entire property is pretty much surrounded by tall, established, mostly-mature trees. Those trees provide a huge amount of shade, which means that everything under the tree needs less water.
Trees are amazingly helpful in all sorts of ways, so I STRONGLY recommend getting yourself some trees. We already talked about their ability to save you money on your water bill. But trees will save you even more money on your air conditioning costs, since the shade they cast keeps your house cooler, reducing the need to crank the thermostat down.
And trees also provide a windbreak during the winter, which helps you with your heating bill. Also, tree roots prevent erosion, trees literally filter your air for you, and studies show that spending time in and around trees has all sorts of cognitive benefits and it makes you smarter. So, again, get you some trees.
In addition to having plenty of trees around for shade, I also live in a part of the country where we get quite a lot of rain. Between the rain and the shade, most of my property stays pretty green most of the time. So, I rarely need to water the entire property.
But I do have some trees that I water sometimes if we haven’t had rain in a while. I planted these trees many years ago, before I understood that native trees are infinitely better than non-native trees. Had I known the amazing truth about the vast superiority of native trees, I would have opted for something else. Way back then, I was not the wise and brilliant man that I am today, and I planted a bunch of boring and ubiquitous leyland cypress trees.
If you have spent any time in the suburbs paying attention to your surroundings, you have seen quite a few of these mighty forest green behemoths. Renowned for their incredibly rapid growth, privacy seekers everywhere looking for a fast-growing/activity-obscuring evergreen tree, have turned to these coniferous monsters.
If you are considering planting some leyland cypress trees, I would respectfully steer you in a different direction. But, before I was the incredibly wise man writing this article, I was once young and naive and foolish. So, the brash young man that was me once planted some leyland cypress trees, and now whenever things get especially dry, I run the irrigation system a bit to try to prevent them from drying out and possibly dying.
You may not think it’s a big deal to just run the entire system to cover one specific area, but water is a finite resource and it is worth thinking about every drop of water that we use throughout the day. Whether we are brushing our teeth, taking a shower, or watering our unfortunately planted leyland cypress trees, it is best to be mindful of any way we can save water. It will help our grandkids and it will help our bank accounts.
So, I am going to try to help you avoid the easy temptation to simply run the entire irrigation system, if you want to target one specific zone of your yard.
First things first, you will need to know which station contains the sprinkler heads that you want to activate. If you have not yet taken the time to create a zone map or station description for your irrigation system, I would recommend making that happen sooner than later. But for now, we will assume that you know which station controls the irrigation heads or drip hoses that you would like to run.
In my case, the zone in question is station 7. If I wanted to water zone 1, it would make this process slightly easier and we could skip some steps, but alas, we will need to expend slightly more time and energy. Oh, the horror! It’s painful, but we will find a way to get through this together.
Also, this is a lot of information. Keep in mind that if at any point during this process you find yourself flummoxed and discombobulated and other large words that mean you feel flustered and in over your head, don’t worry! Don’t fear! Don’t lay down on the ground, curl into the fetal position and sob.
At any point, you can temporarily pause and bail on the whole process by flipping the dial from “RUN” to “OFF”.
When you turn the dial to “OFF”, this will stop the system. Then, once the screen says “OFF”, you can re-group, give yourself a pep talk, maybe do some carbo-loading for emotional support, and then start again from the beginning. Cool? Cool.
If you have not already done so, now would be a good time to make your way to your irrigation control box. In your case, your Hunter Pro-C controller. Now take a nice, deep breath and remind yourself that you can do this.
Much like that old VHS player you finally took to Goodwill, your old irrigation controller was probably once top of the line and would have impressed the hell out of everyone. But unfortunately, those days have long since passed. If your controller looks like the below photo, it is the older, PC-300 version of the Pro-C:
If your Pro-C looks like this photo below, then it is the newer PC-400 version:
We’re going to start chronologically, with the older PC-300 version. If you have the PC-400, it will be worth reading through the PC-300 tutorial. The two controllers are very similar, and there are only slight differences in how you run the system manually. Both in single and all stations mode.
Older Version Hunter Pro-C Manual Single Station (PC-300 or PC-300i):
So, you are standing in front of your controller and you know which station you would like to run. We’re going to use station 7 for this example…since station 7 is the one I want to run. But, the process is the same whether you want to manually run station 1, 12, or 15. But not 16 though, since the Hunter Pro-C only goes up to 15 zones.
Open the controller’s faceplate cover. The screen should say one of three things:
If you have the controller set up to water automatically and the dial is at the 12 o’clock position at “RUN”, then it should display the current time in large letters, and the current day of the week in smaller letters on the bottom. If the current time and date are not correct, you can change the date and time on the controller.
If instead of the current time and day of the week, you see “OFF SENSOR”, that means your rain sensor is active. If you are seeing the “OFF SENSOR” message on the screen and it has not rained recently, you may have an issue with your rain sensor that requires some additional diagnostic work.
Or, maybe you are seeing the “OFF SENSOR” message because it actually did rain recently. The irrigation system will not run manually if the rain sensor is active and has accumulated enough rain to temporarily shut off the irrigation system.
If this is the case and you still want to run the system, you can simply disable the rain sensor temporarily. To temporarily disable the rain sensor, look to the left of the “RUN” and “SYSTEM OFF” dial positions, and you should see a switch that is labeled, “RAIN SENSOR.” You will have two options: “ACTIVE” and “BYPASS”.
If you would like to temporarily disable the rain sensor, simply flip the switch from “ACTIVE” to the “BYPASS” position.
Once you flip the switch to “BYPASS”, the “OFF SENSOR” message should disappear, and instead the screen should now show the current time and day of the week.
Now you are ready to manually run a single station on your Hunter Pro-C!
If the dial is currently in the “RUN” position, go ahead and turn the dial in the counterclockwise direction to “MANUAL – SINGLE STATION” (If you imagine a wall clock, it should be at about the 7 or 8 o’clock position).
You should now see station 1 displayed on the screen on the left, and the amount of watering run time to the right of station 1. The run time will be blinking.
Below the run time you will see the program. Most controllers, including the Hunter Pro-C, will give you the choice for several different programs.
This should not be relevant at the moment, but be aware that the “program” options tend to be one of the more confusing stumbling blocks for Hunter Pro-C users. The reason the specific program is not currently relevant is that whatever changes you make to the watering run time in the “MANUAL – SINGLE STATION” section is only temporary, and will have no impact on your automatic watering program.
The next step is to select the station that you would like to run manually. I’m going to run station 7, so I will press the green Right Arrow button several times, until I reach station 7.
If you have turned the dial to the “MANUAL – SINGLE STATION” section and have selected the appropriate station number, the next step is to make sure you water for the right amount of time.
If the watering run time looks right, then you will not need to change the run time. However, if the run time has too many or too few minutes, you will need to change the number of minutes.
To increase the amount of run time, you simply press the “+” button to the right of the display screen.
Ignore the triangular buttons to the left of the display screen. These are not currently relevant. I only mention them because they are buttons that also have a “+” and a “–”. When I talk about the “+” and “–”, I will NOT be speaking about these triangular buttons here:
I will be referring to these rectangular “+” and “–” buttons to the right of the screen:
To decrease the amount of run time, you simply press the “–” button to the right of the display screen.
Once you have entered the appropriate amount of watering run time, and you are on the right station number, it is time to start watering!
The next step is to turn the dial in the clockwise direction to the RUN position.
Once you turn the dial to the RUN position, you will now see a small icon of a blinking rotary sprinkler head appear on the screen.
This means that the station that you have selected should currently be watering. Now would be a good time to go outside to the area that you are trying to activate and see if the sprinkler heads are coming on.
Hopefully, all went according to plan and you see sprinkler heads watering. Or drip hoses watering. Or micro-sprays watering. Whatever manner of watering apparatus you have, there should be some water coming out of it, at this point.
If you do not see any watering occurring, and the dial on your Hunter Pro-C is on RUN, and you see the appropriate station number, and the run time is no longer blinking, and the sprinkler icon is blinking, then you will need to do some troubleshooting for your poor, troubled Hunter Pro-C. Sad face.
If the correct zone is now manually watering for the appropriate time, then you should be good to go. You should not need to take any further action and your Hunter Pro-C timer should finish watering and cut off when the watering run time has finished.
As long as the dial remains on the RUN position, it should pick right back up with its automatic program.
And unlike your neighbor who is dragging a sprinkler connected to a hose around, you do not need to worry about forgetting to come back and turn the hose bib off, when the appropriate amount of watering time has passed. You now have all sorts of extra time to get things done. But who are we kidding? You’re probably just going to go back to playing video games or endlessly refreshing your Instagram or Twitter timeline.
But hey! You have earned some time to screw around on the internet. You just learned a new skill and you should be very proud of yourself!
Abbreviated directions for Hunter Pro-C Manual (SINGLE STATION) for the OLDER model: PC-300i or PC-300
Older Version Hunter Pro-C Manual All Stations (PC-300 or PC-300i):
You now have the necessary information and brainsmartness (yes, “brainsmartness” is definitely a real word. No need to look it up, just go ahead trust me) to run a single station with your Hunter Pro-C timer. But, what if you don’t just want to activate and run one puny, insignificant, lonely station? What if you want to “make it rain” water throughout your entire parched property?
Then, you will need to learn how to run your Hunter Pro-C’s manual start function. The great news is that it is a bit easier and less involved than turning on a single station manually. In fact, Hunter Industries has made the manual all stations function so easy to utilize, that as long as you are trying to run your Program A with no changes, you should only need to press a single button!
If you are not already in front of your controller, walk your ass on over and let’s get to work. Open the cover on your Hunter Pro-C, and if you know where to look, you will immediately see the instructions for running the manual start feature printed directly on the Pro-C’s faceplate. My my, how convenient!
We have touched in the previous section on the possible complexities of the program feature on your Hunter Pro-C controller. Utilizing the various program possibilities can be extremely helpful, if you know your way around the timer. But if you are new to this whole “automatic lawn sprinklers” thing, then you may find yourself a bit perplexed at this point.
The easiest way to avoid issues is to make sure that Program A is the main default program that you use for your automatic watering needs. Although it is not a problem if you use Program B instead, it will just require one additional step for using your manual Hunter Pro-C all stations function.
Uh-oh! This is starting to sound complicated again. But we are not going to worry. Why? Because, just as I told you before: At any time, you can pause and start all over again by turning the dial from “RUN” to “OFF”.When you turn the dial to “OFF”, this will stop the system. Then, once the screen says “OFF”, you can start the process over again.
Now, once the cover of your controller is open, take a look at the top right corner of your Hunter Pro-C’s faceplate and you should see a text box that says, “MANUAL START – PRESS & HOLD.”
Now look directly to the left of the text box and you will see a green Right Arrow button.
If Program A is the program that you use for automatic watering, then you will simply need to press and hold the green Right Arrow button directly to the left of the text box.
After you have pressed and held the green Right Arrow button, Station 1 and its corresponding run time (number of minutes that the zone runs for) should appear and blink a few times. If Program A is the program that you would like to run, then your work is pretty much done.
If not though, you will want to act while Station 1 is on the screen and the run time is blinking. This is your opportunity to change the program. If you would prefer for Program B or Program C to water, rather than the default Program A, then you would press the green, oval-shaped “PRG” button while Station 1 and the run time blink.
If you press “PRG” while Station 1 and the run time blink, it will take you to Program B and then Station 1 will appear and the run time will blink again in Program B.
If Program B is the program that you would like to run, then again, your work is done.
But if it is the elusive Program C that you seek on your journey, then you have not reached your final destination, and you have not earned rest quite yet. So, once again, when Station 1 and its run time blink, press the green, oval-shaped “PRG” button, and you will make your way to Program C.
Program C is probably not your program, though. If you live in a part of the world where the temperatures dip below freezing over the winter, and you need to winterize your irrigation system, then an irrigation service contractor (or the original installer), may have already taken Program C for the winterization program. This would typically mean that each station on Program C has a couple or a few minutes on it.
Also, if you winterize your irrigation system yourself and haven’t had this brilliant idea occur to you, I would suggest that you take a minute at some point and set up Program C to be your winterization program. Because then, in the future, you will be able to just use the manual all stations feature and switch over to Program C and walk away. Rather than manually programming time on each zone. Set it and forget it! That’s my motto.
Okay, so I am going to assume that you were able to press and hold the green Right Arrow button. You then either left it on Program A, or you pressed the green “PRG” button to get to either Program B or Program C. And then you watched as Station 1 and the run time blinked a few times.
Now, you have seen a small icon of a sprinkler head appear on the screen and Station 1 and the run time have stopped blinking.
This means that Station 1 is now watering. Success! But, just to be sure, let’s take a look out the window or walk outside and verify that Zone 1 is actually watering. If it is, then congratulations! You should be done and ready to get back to lounging, instead of dragging a tangly, slimy hose and manual sprinkler around your yard like a doofus.
You may now close the cover and go have a drink.
Also, you may have noticed the “MANUAL – ALL STATIONS” dial position. You can use this instead of pressing and holding the right arrow to manually run all of the stations in a program. The process is similar to the “MANUAL – SINGLE STATION” tutorial that we already went over.
Why does this particular model of the old PC-300 have two different ways to run all the stations manually? I assume it’s because Hunter Industries was transitioning over to the newer version of the Pro-C, which eliminated the “MANUAL – ALL STATIONS” dial position entirely in favor of the right arrow feature.
So, if you have the even older version of the Pro-C that does not have the right arrow option, you can just follow the above instructions for “MANUAL – SINGLE STATION” and instead of “SINGLE STATION”, turn the dial to “MANUAL – ALL STATIONS”. Then select the program that you would like to use using the green “PRG” button. Then turn the dial in the clockwise position to “RUN”, and it should run through the appropriate cycle.
One last thing I wanted to mention is that you have the ability to make some changes throughout the manual all stations watering process. For instance, if you change your mind after starting the manual all stations process and decide that Station 1 has too much time, you can decrease the run time while Station 1 is actively watering. This will not alter the program for future cycles.
In this example, if you wanted less watering time for Station 1, you would simply press the green rectangular “–” button while Station 1 is watering, and you will see the minutes of run time decrease.
Similarly, if you wanted more watering time for Station 1, you would press the green “+” button while Station 1 is watering, and the run time will decrease.
Also, if you want to move forward to Station 2, while Station 1 is watering, you would simply press the green Right Arrow button.
Or, if the controller was on Station 4 and you wanted to move back to Station 3 for more watering time, you would press the green Left Arrow button to reactivate Station 3.
And of course, if you change your mind and decide that it is not a convenient time to be watering, you can always turn the dial to the “OFF” position.
But, just remember that if you would like for your automatic program to pick back up and water in the future, the dial will need to be on the “RUN” position.
So, if you do turn off the controller, wait a moment to allow time for the controller to communicate with the station’s valve, and then turn the dial back to the “RUN” once the sprinkler heads have stopped watering.
Abbreviated directions for Hunter Pro-C Manual (ALL STATIONS) for the OLDER model: PC-300i or PC-300
Okay, so if you have an old, obsolete (okay fine, we’ll be generous and call it “vintage”) PC-300 version of the Hunter Pro-C, then you are golden. You have now learned how to operate your timer’s manual function in both single station mode and all stations mode.
If however, you have been blessed with the good fortune of having purchased or inherited a newer, shiner, fancier Hunter Pro-C model PC-400 or PC-400i, then you sure did have to scroll through a lot of text to make it all the way down here.
Welcome! We are glad you are here. To the rest of you old and decrepit PC-300 users, you are now excused.
So, if you own a PC-400 style newer Hunter Pro-C, and rather than skipping to the bottom, you actually read all of the above information, well done. I’m impressed that you were able to tolerate my blathering on and on about trees and programs and other nonsense.
But the good news is that if you read all my blithering up until this point, you are extremely well-prepared to operate your newer Hunter Pro-C manually. The PC-300 and the PC-400 are very, very similar.
Newer Version Hunter Pro-C Manual Single Station (PC-400 or PC-400i):
Alright, let’s open the cover of your PC-400 Pro-C and get to it!
We’ll assume the dial is currently either in the “RUN” or the “OFF” position.
Move the dial in the counterclockwise direction to “MANUAL” (If you imagine a wall clock, it should be at about the 10 o’clock position). You’ll see an icon with a hand and a drop of water next to “MANUAL”.
You should now see Station 1 displayed on the screen on the left, as well as the blinking run time.
If you would like to select a different station, you may press the blue Right Arrow or Left Arrow button.
Pressing the Right Arrow button will take you to Stations 2, 3, 4, etc…
And pressing the Left Arrow button will take you to the last station that is wired into your controller.
We will use Station 4 for our example. Once you have selected the appropriate station that you would like to manually water, you will see the station number and the run time blinking.
For more time, press the blue “+” button.
For less time, press the blue “–” button.
Now, to start watering a single station manually, turn the dial in the clockwise direction to the “RUN” position.
Once you turn the dial to the “RUN” position, you will now see a small icon of a blinking rotary sprinkler head appear on the screen.
Now you can verify that the correct station is watering.
If so, you should be in the clear. You can close the cover and move along. As long as you leave the dial in the “RUN” position, the automatic program should pick back up and water on whatever day it is programmed to water next.
Quick directions for PC-400 Hunter Pro-C Manual (SINGLE STATION):
Newer Version Hunter Pro-C Manual Single Station (PC-400 or PC-400i):
Now that we have mastered running an individual station manually, we will move along to the process of running all of the stations in your program, manually. And again, this is for the newer PC-400 version of the Pro-C controller.
Open the outer cover on your timer box and make sure that the dial is in the “RUN” position.
Look for the blue text box on the top right corner of the controller that says, “MANUAL START – PRESS & HOLD.”
To the left of the text box and you will see a blue Right Arrow button.
If Program A is the program that you would like to use for manual watering you may press and hold the blue Right Arrow button.
Station 1 and the run time will appear and the run time will blink twice. Then, the run time will stop blinking and a small sprinkler head icon will appear on the screen. The sprinkler head icon will start blinking.
This means that Station 1 should currently be watering.
If you do not want to use Program A, you also have the option of activating Program B or Program C instead.
In order to change the program, you will need to use the blue “PRG” (program) button.
With the dial in the “RUN” position, press and hold the blue Right Arrow button next to the blue “MANUAL START – PRESS & HOLD” text box.
While the run time is blinking, press the blue “PRG” (program) button once to navigate to Program B and twice to navigate to Program C.
But we don’t want Program C, so we’ll press the blue “PRG” (program) button to get back to Program A.
When the run time stops blinking and the sprinkler head icon appears and starts blinking, that should mean you are all set.
If you want to skip zones, you can press the blue Right Arrow.
And you can add or subtract time using the “+” and “–” buttons.
That’s it! Time to close the cover and move along.
Again, just as with the single station manual directions, anytime you leave the dial in the “RUN” position, the controller should pick right back up with the automatic watering program that has a start time programmed.
Quick directions for PC-400 Hunter Pro-C Manual (ALL STATIONS):
