When mains pressure water is fed through FB, the water starts and stops perfectly.
If I place a 24 V low pressure pump in line with the solenoid value, it drips.
It is true that the water tank is above the FB in height my about 500 cm but my thinking was the solenoid would stop the down flow - but it appear the solenoid uses the water pressure to make a closed seal. When the back pressure is low (gravity fed) the water can get past (All be it very slowly).
Has anyone else experienced this and can make a recommendation of a replacement solenoid of something?
The solenoid valves from U.S. Solid made a good job on my device, but they don’t seem to be very weather resistent (rain) and would need some kind of housing. My Farmbot was in a greenhouse and the water was supplied from a water tank with a pump.
After searching on Amazon I found a perfect pump and solenoid both at 24 V.
Fitted them both today and it works perfectly. No drips and the water flow is a good, but not too strong flow from the tank. The one issue I did have was the solenoid was 10 mm inlets and the pump was only available at 8 mm so I had to include adaptors to compensate. I now need to tidy up the wiring as that is expose to the weather. I may need to 3D print a bot for that or something.
I’m actually having similar issues outfitting my bot with a pump since I’m feeding water from a tank. So did you wire the pump into the board so that it is included in the watering sequence or did you just let it run independently? I would love some guidance on how you did everything.
I joined the new pump and the solenoid onto the same wiring the original water pressure pump was connected. Nothing fancy. This means the pump and solenoid are powered at the same time. The issue is the original solenoid required back pressure to close the valve but the new solenoid is a low pressure valve and does not require the same back pressure to seal off.