Watering system help
Thanks for the explanation rik
I came across this a while back and looked interesting, not sure how it would work on plastic ball valves or the stainless steel one.
https://tinyurl.com/y9wq93ls
I came across this a while back and looked interesting, not sure how it would work on plastic ball valves or the stainless steel one.
https://tinyurl.com/y9wq93ls
GromtyJoe - I'm sure it could be done and some people in this forum have the brain power to pull it off, for me I would rather go with a very well built part and move on to do more growing and solving other automation stress points that impact scaling issues. If you need someone to help test the prototypes, I will all in on that effort.
AUTODEV -
Here is the information you wanted: ( has been stuck in my "OUTBOX" for two days now.
Hope this is OK to get it to you this way. rik
by rik94566
Esa is the owner of the valve company and can answer just about any valve questions a person might have. He is a top notch person and runs a very tight business and returns all calls.
Let me know what else you have questions about an I will see if I can answer them or point you in the right direction.
rik
Esa Harvela
EHCOTECH INTERNATIONAL INC
350 W Ash St
Suite 102
SAN DIEGO, CA 92101
TEL: 1.619.300.2380
FAX: 1.866.910.4799
Re: Watering system help
Here is the information you wanted: ( has been stuck in my "OUTBOX" for two days now.
Hope this is OK to get it to you this way. rik
by rik94566
Esa is the owner of the valve company and can answer just about any valve questions a person might have. He is a top notch person and runs a very tight business and returns all calls.
Let me know what else you have questions about an I will see if I can answer them or point you in the right direction.
rik
Esa Harvela
EHCOTECH INTERNATIONAL INC
350 W Ash St
Suite 102
SAN DIEGO, CA 92101
TEL: 1.619.300.2380
FAX: 1.866.910.4799
Re: Watering system help
Thanks everyone. I'll be working on some variation of this in the coming week. I've got parts coming in the next few days and will hopefully get some variation of it up and running in the coming week. I'll share my experience in my "Humble Beginnings" thread going forward as I plan it being my long term log; just had a lot of questions about this in particular so I felt it deserved its own thread.
Ok, I lied, I'll keep all the watering system stuff on here as I have more questions and makes more sense.
So I set up my first ESP8266 sensor yesterday with ESPHome (after struggling for hours with an esp32 I hit a wall).
I got some magnetic float sensors with the idea that they could be what causes the solenoid to power off when water reaches a certain level. however I ready through the reviews again and found some people mention failures. Now, I'm going to do moister sensors on the floor as a backup but I would prefer that be a backup and not the first/main safety measure. What would be best to do this? Or a combination of the best?
Options as I see:
- A float valve (I believe LEDG had one of these coming in from RO)? Would be mechanical which is fine as long as it does it's job
- The magnetic float sensor I currently have; Afraid of reviews showing failures as well as having some issues set up in esphome as a binary_sensor. I can get it to start in "On" mode, move the float sensor and it goes to "Off" but it never goes back down to "On"
- I could use the moisture sensors I plan on putting on the floor, but not sure how I feel about these being wet all the time as I've seen some musings of them corroding/stopping to work (Once again, I don't need something that will fail and flood)
- Looks like you can use an ultrasonic sensor to determine how much empty space till it sees the water; but I don't know much about this method or how reliable it actually is.
- Use a scale like LEDG did; and then if I do this; I can easily turn that in to amount of water consumed and keep even more metrics.
What would you all see as the best option here? Need a first line of defense to make sure I dont overfill res' and flood things. Main priority being that it actually works; being able to somewhat determine how much water is going in to the system per day/week would be icing on the cake (which is why I like the arduino/esp scale method).
So I set up my first ESP8266 sensor yesterday with ESPHome (after struggling for hours with an esp32 I hit a wall).
I got some magnetic float sensors with the idea that they could be what causes the solenoid to power off when water reaches a certain level. however I ready through the reviews again and found some people mention failures. Now, I'm going to do moister sensors on the floor as a backup but I would prefer that be a backup and not the first/main safety measure. What would be best to do this? Or a combination of the best?
Options as I see:
- A float valve (I believe LEDG had one of these coming in from RO)? Would be mechanical which is fine as long as it does it's job
- The magnetic float sensor I currently have; Afraid of reviews showing failures as well as having some issues set up in esphome as a binary_sensor. I can get it to start in "On" mode, move the float sensor and it goes to "Off" but it never goes back down to "On"
- I could use the moisture sensors I plan on putting on the floor, but not sure how I feel about these being wet all the time as I've seen some musings of them corroding/stopping to work (Once again, I don't need something that will fail and flood)
- Looks like you can use an ultrasonic sensor to determine how much empty space till it sees the water; but I don't know much about this method or how reliable it actually is.
- Use a scale like LEDG did; and then if I do this; I can easily turn that in to amount of water consumed and keep even more metrics.
What would you all see as the best option here? Need a first line of defense to make sure I dont overfill res' and flood things. Main priority being that it actually works; being able to somewhat determine how much water is going in to the system per day/week would be icing on the cake (which is why I like the arduino/esp scale method).
I went ahead and ordered one each of the above; would love to hear your alls opinions on what would work best.
I'm pretty new to all this electronics type stuff. When seeing wiring diagrams for certain things I notice that some stuff such as LEDs require resistors; is there a basic kit of things that I will need/should have on hand for wiring this stuff (Resistors, transistors, etc).
I'm pretty new to all this electronics type stuff. When seeing wiring diagrams for certain things I notice that some stuff such as LEDs require resistors; is there a basic kit of things that I will need/should have on hand for wiring this stuff (Resistors, transistors, etc).
If you are simply looking to detect water level and not volume of water I would go with this sensor - it has everything you would need to get up and running in the fast amount of time and what I have seen is rock solid.
https://wiki.dfrobot.com/Liquid_Level_S ... N0205#More
https://wiki.dfrobot.com/Liquid_Level_S ... N0205#More
For leak detection this may be an option, I feel like the moisture sensors may not be very accurate, not to mention I used one in a dirt pot for like 2 weeks then removed it and set it on a self, two weeks later it looked super corroded, I just don't think the build quality is there.
https://www.aqara.com/us/water_leak_sensor.html
https://www.aqara.com/us/water_leak_sensor.html
As I was warned the solenoids did not work, not even a trickle. using the diaphragm pump and adding a bunch of pressure (and the pump being much louder) didn’t feel right.
I ended up making the “main” manifold using some manual valves with two reservoirs.
I’ll stick with manual solenoids for now and determine if it will be useful and if so, purchase the proper solenoids in the future which appear to be about 30 a pop
I ended up making the “main” manifold using some manual valves with two reservoirs.
I’ll stick with manual solenoids for now and determine if it will be useful and if so, purchase the proper solenoids in the future which appear to be about 30 a pop