Hello!
I recently got my greedy hands on a solar panel and a charge controller. They are able to charge a car battery and now I want to run an arduino powered by the car battery, that can switch on and off a pump to water crops in my (1 square meter) greenhouse.
Not being very knowledgeable (yet) in electronics, I wonder what I need to keep in mind when selecting a waterpump. I guess it is preferrably a DC powered pump, max 12V to run off of the car battery? But what else is important?
regards,
Arno
Pressure and flow rate? You won't be turning the pump on and off directly using the Arduino pins. You'll need a relay or transistor to turn the pump on and off, so get the pump, and then get a relay or transistor and related electronics to match the pump.
Maybe a junk yard car windshield washer pump would do the job cheap. They should be 12vdc and you could use a relay or logic level mosfet transistor to turn the pump on and off under program control.
Lefty
Just remember that the windshield wiper pumps are not meant to run for very long. They tend to burn out after a while.
You can try camping shops, they sometimes have small pumps.