poor man's garden sprinkler

[huggy59]

More info: the timers only cycle at the top of a minute - that is, they only send a pulse at when the minute changes. IF you set a zone to ON manually, it will wait till the next minute change to toggle it on.

In the white plastic shell is a solenoid valve with 4 wires. Two are wired together for the common lead on the cable/plug. The other two are the ON and OFF toggle.

I have not been able to catch the pulse as yet and get a good reading on what it looks like. I"ve tried a 9V battery and got nowhere, so it's probably higher than that. Maybe I can dig out my old scope and see if I can catch it. THey are cheap enough if you wanted to hack a timer, though. The 4 valve system came with a nice brass manifold with manual on/off valves, two electric valves and the timer for $40 or so. The manifold itself easily goes for $12-15.

 

[huggy59]

See the pics of a valve with the cover off at my site: My Image Gallery - Misc Pics

Sorry about the lack of quality on the close-up - I need a tripod! But it looks like the wiring is:

black - common (you can see two from the solenoid to the circuit board there) - sleeve
copper - 2 - ring
red - 1 - tip

Not sure yet which is on or off, but I did test with two 9V batteries (18VDC) and that toggled nicely. They are probably on the order of 12-24 VDC. I'll post when I have more info.

 

[ginigma]

One other thing, I assume simply shoving two of the wires into an AC outlet in my house would not work (nor be a good example to my 5 month old son).

If you do that, please video tape it so we can all see the sparks fly!
j/k you know.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

See the pics of a valve with the cover off at my site: My Image Gallery - Misc Pics

Sorry about the lack of quality on the close-up - I need a tripod! But it looks like the wiring is:

black - common (you can see two from the solenoid to the circuit board there) - sleeve
copper - 2 - ring
red - 1 - tip

Not sure yet which is on or off, but I did test with two 9V batteries (18VDC) and that toggled nicely. They are probably on the order of 12-24 VDC. I'll post when I have more info.

Gordon;

This is great info. One thing I'm curious on is what would happen if the voltage was left "on" instead of pulsed. It would make the interface less complicated.

I'm thinking once we figure out the power requirements we could switch the valve with a single pole, double throw relay (so only one Elk output is used), but again, power would remain on (in one of the positions).

 

[huggy59]

I suspect leaving power on would probably burn out the coils prematurely. It would be better to pulse them, less power needed, too. After all, they worked on a single set of 3 AA batteries almost all summer last year here, doing a couple daily cycles for two valves. Maybe we can come up with a simple circuit to provide the pulse.

 

[eufreka]

I suspect leaving power on would probably burn out the coils prematurely. It would be better to pulse them, less power needed, too. After all, they worked on a single set of 3 AA batteries almost all summer last year here, doing a couple daily cycles for two valves. Maybe we can come up with a simple circuit to provide the pulse.

Actually, I was wondering if we could use an IR connecting block and send an IR signal (pulse) from Homeseer....

 

[Just Another Joe]

Great thread; lot's of good information; thanks to all who've posted.

For Canadian readers, I believe this is the same timer add-on valve, for CDN$18. Not bad. And here is the timer with manifold and two valves for CDN$75. Not so good.

But due to difficulty in getting wires from my [inside] Ocelot to my outside water valve, I was wanting to use this remote-controlled valve. Unfortunately, Canadian Tire has never actually had this in stock, perhaps they never will, and I haven't been able to find anything similar. Does anyone know of such a beast?

[P.S. I don't know if these links will work for others, since they contain a session ID. If not, just do a search for 'water timer' for the first ones, and 'remote' for the last one.]

 

[mustangcoupe]

Looking at the pictures that Gordon posted... I would guess that they dipped the wires in a coating thatw why there is no insulation. You may need to burn or scrape the ends or you wont get a good contact.... You'll need to try to measure contunuity with a multi meter from one spot on the green wire to another spot on the same wire.....

 

[politics123]

Looking at the pictures that Gordon posted... I would guess that they dipped the wires in a coating thatw why there is no insulation. You may need to burn or scrape the ends or you wont get a good contact.... You'll need to try to measure contunuity with a multi meter from one spot on the green wire to another spot on the same wire.....

The AC solution seems pretty easy. What's the advantage of going with a DC solution? Are you guys planning to power directly from an ELK (no additional wal-wart)?

 

[huggy59]

The windings on the DC valves measure about 4.5 ohms.

The advantages I see are that less power is used by the DC valves, and power does not have to be constantly applied to keep the valve in one position or the other. Disadvantage: if an OFF pulse is missed, the valve stays on, or vice versa.

The use of IR is an interesting concept - you'd just have to take that signal and use it to trigger a more powerful pulse of power to the valve - amplify it. You could probably take a 555 timer chip and set it up to do the job with a relay and an appropriate power supply.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Looking at the pictures that Gordon posted... I would guess that they dipped the wires in a coating thatw why there is no insulation. You may need to burn or scrape the ends or you wont get a good contact.... You'll need to try to measure contunuity with a multi meter from one spot on the green wire to another spot on the same wire.....

The AC solution seems pretty easy. What's the advantage of going with a DC solution? Are you guys planning to power directly from an ELK (no additional wal-wart)?

It's not so much an AC vs. DC power decision as much as the DC valve happens to need NO plumbing adapters and fits right to an outdoor faucet and garden hose. The typical AC controlled valve will require additional plumbing adapters as it was meant to connect to PVC pipe fittings (3/4" I believe). Not the end of the world and in the end it might be the most reliable choice. I get my (DC) valve in later this week and will do some playing around with it.

 

[RichTJ99]

BraveSirRobin,

I was curious if you got your valve in the mail yet? I still cant figure out how to make this work with a wall wart. I did buy a variable DC charger (it has tabs for different battery configurations).

Thanks
Rich

 

[ginigma]

Since my HD didn't have that valve, and I wasn't too keen on the DC valve and having to pulse it, I picked up a Toro 3/4" 24VAC valve. It will only require one adapter to the hose bib, a female-female garden hose adapter.
So I go to start assembling and I go to my electronics parts box and wouldn't ya know, I don't have a 24VAC transformer, so I gotta pick one up, then I can get back to this project. I'll post pics of my frankenstein valve setup in a few days.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

BraveSirRobin,

I was curious if you got your valve in the mail yet? I still cant figure out how to make this work with a wall wart. I did buy a variable DC charger (it has tabs for different battery configurations).

Thanks
Rich

I got mine in today and started playing around with it. As Gordon stated in posts above, you have to pulse the valve with a pretty hefty DC supply source to get it to "toggle". I used two nine volt batteries in series.

The tip and center of the 1/8" connector are toggle points and the base is ground.

I ordered some capacitors in the tenths of farad range to see if I can charge them to trip the solenoid with a smaller source/wall wart. Either way, it looks like it's going to be a hassle as you will need external components other than a wall wart to get this thing to work, plus I don't see off hand how you can use less than two digital control outputs (plus they have to be "momentary") to turn this valve on and off.

Seems the easier way may be to just use a conventional valve and deal with only having to purchase an additional adapter as was mentioned above! Will keep you informed...

 

[huggy59]

Yes, I agree, BSR, it is not very hacker friendly when compared to the AC units. But it was designed for low power battery operation. I'd say they achieved their design goals.

You could hook it up to a parallel or serial port with a relay and a couple 9v batteries and just toggle the bits on the port... IF your PC still has those ports! ;-)

Maybe we can get Midon to offer a little 1-wire board to plug them into and manage them through a 1-wire interface?