The problem is, in order to have an even coverage of mist, you need a lot of misters... which we have... but that means everything gets soaked in no time at all. After eating dinner a few nights ago in puddles of water, I decided we needed an automatic valve that turns the misters on for, say, 15 seconds and then turns them off for 30 seconds.
Since I didn't really have anything to do today, I decided to give it a go.
Here's a standard sprinkler valve that controls the misters:
...And here's the box that controls the valve:
(I know, crooked labels... Man, Ben, you'd think you could get something right.)Originally, I was going to make it smart enough to automatically vary the on/off time based on temperature, air movement, and humidity, but that was going to cost about $100, so I went with some dumb analog electronics. I haven't touched true analog for years, so it was... different. I love microcontrollers so much more. True I don't have a cool wireless remote with an LCD display, but it's functional and... well... it costs like $5 in parts :-)
4 comments:
Now, the big question.. will you be able to cover the cost of the parts with the savings from the water saved?
I don't think you understand the reason why I built it. I built it for the same reason you'd buy a sprinkler timer.
because you are lazy? :D
Sure. Why not.
At least I did something.
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