I’m trying to keep my dog supplied with fresh water and no provide mosquitos with a place to reproduce. Right now, I working on a valve that controls water in, one that drains it, and a timer. I will add safeties later like a back up impeller measuring water flow and shutting it off if to much goes through, draining at night etc. I’m a total noob, so I have a few questions.
When searching for valves what do I search for 5V solenoid water valves?
And can I run to 5V components off of one board? I guess what would happen if both valves where used at the same time, would the both get 5V, would I zap the arduino, would it work?
You might be able to do this with one valve if you put your inlet in the bottom, and your drain at the max water level. Then you could just open the inlet valve once a day to flush out the old water and control the water level at the same time. This would keep the bowl full, and flush out the junk. If you offset your inlet, you could create some “swirl cleaning action”.
I don’t know if you would want a 5V solenoid, I just don’t know enough about that world. It might be better to provide 12V to your project, and use one of these:
Be careful with the SFE valve. The description indicates that you need a significant amount of water pressure to keep the valve open. A pump does not work, but a garden hose does. Filling a dog bowl with a garden hose of pressure might be a tad bit messy!
You will likely have much more luck with 12VDC, 12VAC, or 120VAC valves. 5V is not a lot of voltage to drive a solenoid. That will mean an added level of complexity in controlling those higher voltages with a 5V micro, but nothing that can’t be handled fairly simply.
I’ve seen some computerized drink dispensers/mixers (purely of academic interest of course !) One, [Bar2D2, used these valves to control the nectar of the gods … errr … potable liquids.
Seems they come in 120 VAC, 24 VAC and 12 VDC (0.5A) versions. The latter looks promising and at <$30 not that expensive either. Now you could use 2 and some pressurized or gravity feed system on the input side but you might think about a 12 VDC aquarium pump. You’d have a covered tank that would need periodic refilling and the pump would fill the dish from that. I don’t know how maintaince-free you’re aiming for but refilling the tank every few days (perhaps) doesn’t sound like a deal killer. I think such pumps are about $20. I’m sure a suitable 12 VDC capable driver/switch shield for an Arduino is available.](http://www.instructables.com/id/Robotic-Drink-Mixer/)
fll-freak:
Filling a dog bowl with a garden hose of pressure might be a tad bit messy!
I didn't think of that. But it sure would blast the junk out of the bowl, and might make for some great video if you hooked up a camera pointed at it. Since we are geekin'-out a dog bowl, you could give "Fido" a RFID collar and have a reader on the bowl. Whenever some "other" animal (i.e. possums, the neighbors cat if you don't like it, and the like) came along you could have the bowl incidentally "clean" itself at that very moment, even better video. I smell a YouTube sensation coming along, who knows, you might even make the front page on the Sparkfun site.
Sorry, couldn’t avoid the sillyness. The ideas just came rushing in.
You still might be able to use the SFE solenoids, if you kept the flow rate down, and just used if for the pressure. A diffused or properly directed inlet still might work. You would definitely have to experiment.
If you want to stay as low $$ as possible then here’s an idea that I get from watching IV tubes. Run a length of flexible tubing from a “high” mounted water tank to the bowl. In between you have a low voltage gear motor with a cam on the output shaft. When rotating the cam alternately pinches off (thus closing) the tube and opens the tube. A simple switch on the cam let’s your controller know when the tube is open/closed. A similar valve could be affixed to a hole in the bottom of the bowl.
Funny you mention blasting out the bowl. I was thinking that. With the RFID you could slow fill for the dog and blast it empty at night. I initially thought the blast could be for other critters but it would most likely be me. My dog has the RFID already, he’s from the pound I’m not sure how close he would have to be though.
I certainly hope your dog isn’t like mine. Mine would figure out in short order that digging out all the water causes the bowl to go into a “cleaning” cycle, with much watery fun for the dog.
