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BTW here’s some information on how to use ET to calculate watering time. It’s specifically for grape vines but the methodology seems like it would be applicable to anything with the proper conversion factors.
It would also be nice to have the rain/freeze delay controllable from the weather station as well instead of a normal irrigation rain sensor.
Brandon
BTW if you can’t find a suitable 110 volt pump but can find a 12vDC or 24vDC one, you can still use the pump relay with an additional power supply dedicated to the pump.
I think you’ve got a few options.
1. Find a low pressure valve. I did see some candidates on the web but couldn’t find manufacturer spec sheets right off so that would need to be verified to see if they would work. Some of them appear to require at least 2 or 5 PSI which would be tough to achieve with gravity alone indoors. Still that’s a lot better than the 10-15 required by a lot of sprinkler valves. Some of them appear to have options to work with 24VAC but if you can only find one that’s 24VDC then you could rectify the 24VAC from the OSPi to DC with some diodes or a pre-made rectifier. One example I found is a Dayton 2CZZ9 at Grainger and another is labeled “ELECTRONIC SHUT-OFF SOLENOID VALVE WITH QC FITTINGS 24VAC” at freshwatersystems.com. If you look at the ones at Grainger be sure to click through to the catalog page as it seems to have clearer info than the web page to me. They do seem pricey though.
2. Find a way to hook sprinkler valves into your pluming. You can get tees that screw in to regular faucet hookups for example and with the right fittings you could just hook them up to regular sprinkler valves. Depending on your water pressure you might need a pressure regulator to bring the pressure down to whatever level your outlets need – ie some drippers require max 25 PSI, others might be lower. Look at homedepot.com item 100156718 for an example.
3. If you have to use a water pump – I’d look at the sprinkler pump relays (ie Orbit 57009). If you get one of those it would just hook into the OSPi as a master valve and it would cut electric in and out to the pump. You’d need a pump that uses normal 110 volt AC power. Get a small inexpensive extension cord, cut it in half, and wire it in to the relay. Then you can just plug the pump in easily. If the pressure it outputs is high enough to operate standard sprinkler valves then you should be good to go, or just get some of the lower pressure valves referenced above.
HTH,
BrandonWhat are you trying to do? Those pumps at West Marine are all going to be DC and not AC so they definitely won’t work directly connected to the OpenSprinkler. Even if they were AC instead of DC, they are too high of a power draw. They would need their own power source that you’d control with a relay.
Explain what you are trying to do and I’ll try to give you some ideas.
