Issue with a Richdel 476pri lawn sprinler controller.

cabreco

A few days ago my sprinklers weren't going off. I notice the display on the controller was flickering "1 FUS". According to the manual this indicates a bad solenoid or a wire short.

For some reason I decided to replace the 9v battery that keeps time & settings in case of power outage. When I took off the old (dead) battery the controller went blank & the well pump fired up (it controls the pump as well).

So I replaced the battery and everything worked fine for 2 days then the display started flickering again. Dead battery again. If I replace the battery everything works well until the battery dies.

Now what I am doing is connecting the battery so that the cycle processes then after it's done I unplug the battery so it doesn't kill it.

All zones are working so the solenoids are good. The transformer is also putting out power.

So can anyone tell me what is killing the battery and why is the battery (which is only supposed to keep time) is the central link here?

Any help would be appreciated.