- Sun Jun 12, 2011 6:56 am
#128621
..ecohouse as in economical and ecological
Hi folks,
I will need some small help from you to finish this project so bare with me! But the idea is great and simple!
I built a simple project based on this article (http://inhabitat.com/5-tips-to-green-yo ... m-joaquin/). As a first tip it mentions installing a foot pedal on one's sinks. It also gives links to comercial products.
But as I had all the necessaries, I decided I could build my own kitchen sink pedal.
The main ingredients are:
2pc 12V Solenoid Valve - 3/4" (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10456)
1pc Foot Switch (http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/foot-s ... th=156_160)
1pc 12V Adapter (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9442)
1pc DC Barrel Power Jack/Connector (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/119)
1pc Toggle Switch (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9276)
(I think the project is missing some capacitors or resistors - for smoothing the output of the adapter - plus other components)
You guessed it! I am not a EE guy! But I did manage to make the whole thing work smoothly until my adapter failed
So this is how it works!
A Solenoid Valve like the one we are going to use is normally closed. That means that as long as no current is passing through it, water will not be permitted to pass either! We have to take this into consideration when we do the plumbing because if the electricity fails for different reasons you would want to use your faucets even then!
From a plumber's point of view:
The cold water pipe is connected to a T fitting and then to the Solenoid Valve and then to a T fitting again finishing into the normal pipe that goes towards the faucet. The first T fitting has a manual valve connected to it at the 90 degree output and then it is connected to the other T fitting's 90degree input (in this case). The T fittings are put here for fail-safe reasons (in case the electrical part of the project does not work for different reasons as mentioned above). The Manual Valve is kept closed to force the water pressure towards the Solenoid Valve and is to be opened only if problems with the Solenoid Valve are to occur.
I tried to make a schematics to the whole plumbing . I added some points, otherwise all the spaces between the different characters would have been deleted once this was posted. Don't know why!
.....................................
..->T->SV->T->..........
.......|............^...............
.......v............|...............
.....MV ..........|...............
.......|.............|...............
.......L________J...............
.....................................
">", "v" and "^" stand for direction of water flow
"T" stands for T fitting
"SV" stands for Solenoid Valve
"MV" stands for Manual Valve
"L" and "J" stand for L fittings
From an electrician's point of view:
The Solenoid Valve doesn't seem to have a positive and a negative so you don't have to take care of that. So I connected one of the leads directly to the negative of the DC Barrel Power Jack/Connector. The other lead is connected to the foot pedal. The pedal I use has 3 leads (black, red and white). Two are for negative and positive, respectively and the third one is for signal (white). We want the pedal to act as a normally closed switch so we will use the positive and the signal leads. So whenever we step on it we connect the positive lead to the signal lead, thus letting current pass.
The toggle switch is present in cases where you would want to let the faucet run without you being present (as to keep the pedal pushed).
..................................................
..........12VDC ---- SV -----.......
........... |..............................|.......
........... |..............................|.......
............|..............................|.......
............L___toggle switch___J......
............|..............................|.......
............|..............................|.......
........... L_____pedal________J.......
...................................................
Warning: The adapter that I am using that is a 12VDC 900mA got burned and I suspect spikes in current while turning the installation on (pressing the pedal). And I believe the installation needs additional components like capacitors or resistors! Otherwise it works really nice
I hope this will installation is going to be used by many of you as it really helps you use less water while not trying to dramatically change your usual household habits. I consider it to be really cheap and in 2 or 3 months it could pay itself.
Please help me finish this project with what would be easy advices for many of you guys!
zws
PS: In the attached pic you can see (besides the hairy hand of the plumber that helped me ) that I also attached a Micro Hydro Generator and a Water Sensor but that is a whole different story!
Hi folks,
I will need some small help from you to finish this project so bare with me! But the idea is great and simple!
I built a simple project based on this article (http://inhabitat.com/5-tips-to-green-yo ... m-joaquin/). As a first tip it mentions installing a foot pedal on one's sinks. It also gives links to comercial products.
But as I had all the necessaries, I decided I could build my own kitchen sink pedal.
The main ingredients are:
2pc 12V Solenoid Valve - 3/4" (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10456)
1pc Foot Switch (http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/foot-s ... th=156_160)
1pc 12V Adapter (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9442)
1pc DC Barrel Power Jack/Connector (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/119)
1pc Toggle Switch (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9276)
(I think the project is missing some capacitors or resistors - for smoothing the output of the adapter - plus other components)
You guessed it! I am not a EE guy! But I did manage to make the whole thing work smoothly until my adapter failed
So this is how it works!
A Solenoid Valve like the one we are going to use is normally closed. That means that as long as no current is passing through it, water will not be permitted to pass either! We have to take this into consideration when we do the plumbing because if the electricity fails for different reasons you would want to use your faucets even then!
From a plumber's point of view:
The cold water pipe is connected to a T fitting and then to the Solenoid Valve and then to a T fitting again finishing into the normal pipe that goes towards the faucet. The first T fitting has a manual valve connected to it at the 90 degree output and then it is connected to the other T fitting's 90degree input (in this case). The T fittings are put here for fail-safe reasons (in case the electrical part of the project does not work for different reasons as mentioned above). The Manual Valve is kept closed to force the water pressure towards the Solenoid Valve and is to be opened only if problems with the Solenoid Valve are to occur.
I tried to make a schematics to the whole plumbing . I added some points, otherwise all the spaces between the different characters would have been deleted once this was posted. Don't know why!
.....................................
..->T->SV->T->..........
.......|............^...............
.......v............|...............
.....MV ..........|...............
.......|.............|...............
.......L________J...............
.....................................
">", "v" and "^" stand for direction of water flow
"T" stands for T fitting
"SV" stands for Solenoid Valve
"MV" stands for Manual Valve
"L" and "J" stand for L fittings
From an electrician's point of view:
The Solenoid Valve doesn't seem to have a positive and a negative so you don't have to take care of that. So I connected one of the leads directly to the negative of the DC Barrel Power Jack/Connector. The other lead is connected to the foot pedal. The pedal I use has 3 leads (black, red and white). Two are for negative and positive, respectively and the third one is for signal (white). We want the pedal to act as a normally closed switch so we will use the positive and the signal leads. So whenever we step on it we connect the positive lead to the signal lead, thus letting current pass.
The toggle switch is present in cases where you would want to let the faucet run without you being present (as to keep the pedal pushed).
..................................................
..........12VDC ---- SV -----.......
........... |..............................|.......
........... |..............................|.......
............|..............................|.......
............L___toggle switch___J......
............|..............................|.......
............|..............................|.......
........... L_____pedal________J.......
...................................................
Warning: The adapter that I am using that is a 12VDC 900mA got burned and I suspect spikes in current while turning the installation on (pressing the pedal). And I believe the installation needs additional components like capacitors or resistors! Otherwise it works really nice
I hope this will installation is going to be used by many of you as it really helps you use less water while not trying to dramatically change your usual household habits. I consider it to be really cheap and in 2 or 3 months it could pay itself.
Please help me finish this project with what would be easy advices for many of you guys!
zws
PS: In the attached pic you can see (besides the hairy hand of the plumber that helped me ) that I also attached a Micro Hydro Generator and a Water Sensor but that is a whole different story!
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