homeassistant

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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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Controllable water valves? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 9 months ago by stsquad@lemmy.ml to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world

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Are there any good recommendations for water control valves? I want to control a automatic watering system and need something to attach to the garden tap. Open firmware would be a bonus.

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[–] walden@sub.wetshaving.social 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I used to have a 4 zone home-brew solution with hoses hooked up to a home-made manifold with valves. It worked really well, but I was never confident in the durability/longevity of it. It was on a side of my house that I never looked at, and I just knew one day it was going to break and waste a bunch of water. It never did, though, and we ended up moving and I threw the contraption away.

Anyway, what I did was used irrigation valves, with a dry contact relay for each one.

Most irrigation valves run on 24v AC (not DC), so you need to buy a separate power supply for them. The dry contact relays that you use is up to you. I used a Sonoff 4CH Pro R3 (flashed with Tasmota, of course!).

The hardest part for me was the plumbing. These valves come in various sizes (3/4", 1", etc) and are either threaded or not. I ended up using non-threaded with PVC cement. Once you glue everything together it's permanent. Then I had to figure out how to connect a hose, which of course has specific threads for hoses. The valves are designed to be buried in an irrigation box, but mine were above ground exposed to the hot sun, elements, etc. Like I said, I wasn't confident in the longevity, but it did work well.

[–] billygoat@catata.fish 2 points 9 months ago

That is my fear when I think about these things. I can be away from home for weeks at a time and the thought of it 'bugging out' and not closing keeps me from doing something like this.