Selfsufficientish.com

That some where in the Great ISH, there is someone who can help me.
To begin with, I must confess that my knowledge of Electrics, is equal to that of my knowledge Brain Surgery so on that understanding, I will will now outline my Problem.
Having installed my Gravity Fed watering system, and find it works very well feeding the whole garden through a 1inch pipe I have been looking to automate the system by using a mains timer. The reasons for not using a mains water Timer is that most garden automated timers are used on pressurised water and/or small bore pipe. Because of this, my system fails to work as well. So to answer this problem, I have bought a 1in bore Solenoid water Valve,which is rated AC 220v DC 24v and TWO RED wires. Now I know about red and black wires, and roughly where they go, but 2 red wires?.
So now my question is; is there any way to connect the valve into the main circuit, and how without killing myself;

Living in hope

Call in an electrician gadgee?

If you can post a link to where you got it from I'll have a look and see if I can give you an answer (electronics is my trade). It seems a bit odd that it's rated for AC and DC at such disparate voltages too. Are you sure it's not AC 22V?

Absolutely agree with Crickleymal - those voltages look wrong. I've seen ratings at 12VDC/24VAC or similar - broadly speaking, the AC voltage being roughly twice the DC voltage - but your figures look suspect. You can get solenoid coils which will work on either, but I've never seen one with such a great difference.

As for the cables, you're talking about a solenoid coil - it doesn't care which way round you connect it. So, one of the wires to switched positive (or live) and the other to negative (or neutral). But (and I cannot imagine this to be the case) if there's no earth wire, then I hope that you have a plastic-bodied valve.

Mike

Water & Electrics....

I agree with Flo!

I bought this solenoid valve through Amazon Uk and the details are as follows,

2W- 250-25 2 way 1" port and it is the one with the brass screw pipe connection;

I realise that in my original post I was quoting the Chinese translation, and that they had put 2 models on the same line.

Are you sure it's a solenoid valve? sounds to me like a motorised valve. probably 25w not volt. The ones I've fitted have had both wires the same colour and have always worked so I assume that it doesn't matter which way round they go. Can't guarantee anything though without seeing it, and I'm not an expert

I realise that it's always annoying to end up buying something else, but I think the perfect solution might be a Gardena Low Pressure Water Timer... Battery powered, will operate with zero pressure, designed for precisely this sort of job.

I agree with Dunc, I have 3 of these (although not this one but earlier much cheaper models). Mine run all year on a 9v battery and I can set them to turn on for a minimum of 1 minute to 24 hours as many times a day as I want.
I have one at the moment drip feeding my tomatoes from a small cistern with a 1 foot head.

I have a normal timer, which I tried on my gravity fed system but they have a flow through orifice size through the unit of half inch, which is insufficient to build enough pressure in my one and half inch tube, to feed all the 8 raised beds. I have now solved the problem and I am glad to say that I can water the garden whilst asleep in bed.
With regards to calling in an Electrician," been there done that" at a cost 184 euros only to be told the piece he had installed was totally unnecessary, and that I could have bought a plug in unit for 20euros, so "once caught caught twice shy"
Anyway, thanks for all the comments,
Oldfella

I presume it's this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/2W-250-25-Posit ... 841&sr=8-5 ?
I can only see 220Vac on the lid in the picture so I would assume that you wire it up to the mains. It doesn't matter which wire goes to Live or Neutral at all. Either will do, one to live, the other to neutral. Just to check if you measure the resistance of the coil with a multimeter it should read somewhere in the region of 20-25,000 ohms if it is a mains coil.

Yes Malc, that's the one and it's' working extremely well. Thank you for your time and advice.If you are ever in my neck of the woods, please call in and we will share a bottle or three.

Eddy

No worries, glad to help