Decent British or German solenoid valve manufacturer?

[Michael Kilpatrick]

Does anyone know of a *decent* manufacturer of water solenoid valves, preferably a source from which there could be some come-back in the future, such that I can get an outdoor valve (240V, I don't care what fittings it is, 3/4 BSP or whatever, as long as I can interface it to a standard water Hep 25mm pipe by some means or other) which doesn't leak exactly one year and two weeks after I buy it?

Yes, everything in this world is shit. I can spend £30 on Ebay from a UK seller on a valve for the timing device for my pond top-up system, and find that it lasts a year before I see drips coming out of the end of the pipe...

The offending item was, I believe, a Klod valve, bought from a UK seller (now vanished from Ebay) but I think made in Thailand?

Michael

[alan_m]

Does it have to be electrically operated? Surestop have a valve manually operated by differential water pressure.

The on/off switch on one model can be palced a couple of meters away from the valve.

[Michael Kilpatrick]

I'm looking for a 240V solenoid which can be operated by the timer circuit I made which allows a 10-minute burst of water to top up a pond without supervision.

Michael

[Tim+]

It that the fault of the solenoid valve or a problem caused by lack of frost protection?

I?m sure the solenoids in my washing machine as as cheap as they come but they seem to be very reliable, indoors.

Tim

[Jethro_uk]

Could you not solve the problem with a water butt, a pump and a timer ?

[Charles F]

I've used washing machine inlet valves, single and double, for timed irrigation for years without problems - and they have been reclaimed from scrap washing machines at that.

Ideally they should be indoors, but I have used them out of doors in a sealed plastic box. For safety out of doors I've fed them via a 12 volt transformer, and then a similar transformer at the other end in reverse. This means that the cable is carrying 12VAC, and then this is converted back to a balanced, isolated, nominal 240VAC at the valve end in the sealed box.

Charles F

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

I purchased a brass body one about 4 years ago from a company that's local to myself.

Couple of e-mails to them with what I wanted it to do and they suggested the one I have.

I wanted it to replace the badly designed cleaning system on a new pond filter so it cleaned from mains water rather than pumping pond water to waste every cleaning cycle. It must have done 10's of thousands of operations over the years without hitch. I was advised to put a diode across the terminals to stop collapsing coil voltage spike returning to control panel.

Video of my mod. showing valve before/after is here:

Last year I modified the design to perfection by changing the worm drive gear to a higher ratio and up-grading the 12v supply by a few amps so it now does a full rotation in around 10 seconds rather than 90 seconds thereby saving vast amounts of water.

:)

[Jethro_uk]

Hydroponics suppliers ?

[Andrew]

Or a standard ball-c*ck, float arrangement, as used by farmers for animal water troughs out in the field ??

[Jethro_uk]

could be a go-er ?

I'm not *that* au fait with commercial agriculture, but it sounds a starting place ?

[Cynic]

[Steve Walker]

In industrial applications, I have used ASCO before. They are not cheap and I don't know what their standard ones are like - only having had need of ones rated for flammable atmospheres!

SteveW

[Marland]

Is it essential that it is mains and a solenoid valve? The various timers for greenhouse and flower bed irrigation vary from suspiciously cheap to Hoselock prices. Rather than a solenoid they are motorised by a geared motor so they can work of an AA battery etc. My middle of the range one has done 5 years much to my surprise though I do bring inside in Winter. If you want to stick with mains and your own timer then a motorised valve as used on central heating systems may suit you rather than a solenoid type though you may have to DIY a method of making it suitable for outside use.

GH