I’m building a keg (as in beer keg) washer for my friends brewery. I have an Arduino Uno that I would like to control the keg washer. To do this I will use five solenoid water valves, two power switch tails, one momentary switch, and a buzzer.
My background is in Civil Engineering, dirt and concrete, and I have only one semester intro to e-circuits education. I have spent a few weeks reading up on the arduino and completing a few sketches. First, the switch is obviously to start and interrupt the cycle, the buzzer is to signal the end of the cycle, the power switch tails will control one pump each, and as far as the valve I have options:
The solenoid I am testing now is a latching solenoid;
As seen on Ray’s Minty Water Valve;
I have tried to recreate his controller but only to pop the AOP605 complementary MOSFETs, Surely due to my limited experience in e-circuits. The latching solenoid is energy efficient but I wonder if it would be better for me to use a standard return spring solenoid.
My question is what would be the best, i.e. most reliable and easiest to configure, solenoid valves to use. Once this is established I will need some assistance or reference to create the circuit to control it.
Please bear with me; this should be a fun project!
A latching solenoid (bi-stable) is a good thing if you run it on battery, as you don't have to power it all the time.
To switch it, get a beefy logic-level n-mosfet and a free wheeling diode. I couldn't find any valuable info about the valve you linked to as far as required voltage/current are concerned. That sucks.
It's an AC valve... that changes things a bit. That would require a device that can switch AC, e.g. a TRIAC/solid state relay or a DC relay + transistor.
mdmoore00:
Does that directly attach to my Arduino? Or do I attach it to my Arduino like such: Arduino Playground - HomePage
You can connect directly on Arduino outputs in the inputs of these relay boards.
They already have the transistors, resistors and diodes.
That's why I liked these boards.
mdmoore00:
Does that directly attach to my Arduino? Or do I attach it to my Arduino like such: Arduino Playground - HomePage
You can connect directly on Arduino outputs in the inputs of these relay boards.
They already have the transistors, resistors and diodes.
That's why I liked these boards.
Now you are making this much to easy. Thanks, I'll be ordering one shortly!
mdmoore00:
Now you are making this much to easy. Thanks, I'll be ordering one shortly!
forgot to mention, this relay board that showed before even comes with an opto-insulator, which completely isolates the signals from the microcontroller from the power of the relay (which can easily damage the microcontroller).
You are correct, and I feel like a boob.
h=P/ρg =10psi(144)/ (64.2*32.2)= .717' too much gravity here.... removing 32.2 we get 22.43 feet of head needed!
Regardless I will have a pump on the lines with valves and one valve with municipal water.