2021 Feb 08, 10:35 PM
I've been running this for a couple of years. Here's the setup: There is a 19th-century dug well in my side yard. In it, I have a 24V submersible pump. The pump runs off a pair of 12V 26-AH lead acid batteries, which are kept charged with 2 100W solar panels and an MPPT Morningstar controller. The pump is activated by a 24V DC relay fed by a full wave bridge rectifier. 24VAC
comes from the opensprinkler pi, is rectified by the bridge, and runs the relay. The pump itself draws about 3A at 24V. It lifts the water clear up to the top of the hill, about 70 feet above the well.
Up the hill behind the house is our "exercise room" shed. In it, a grey PVC box containing an Rpi 3, and an "Opensprinkler Pi" board. It reliably connects to our home wifi. At this time, there are four stations. The irrigation control wire from the opensprinkler pi goes 50 feet from the shed to the fence. Then it goes 100 feet up the fence to the top of the hill. The another 80 feet
across the top of the hill. Then down the other side of the hill another 300 feet, where it arrives at the well station. It's a lot of wire.
I had the bright idea of making the wire colors match the standard resistor color code. So station 1 = brown, 2=red, etc.
Am in the process of stringing out a second cable to get more stations. The original cable - each color ends at its station. So if I bring a second cable up to the middle or so, I can regain
some of those wires...as I said, it's a LOT of wire.
To do some software maintenance on that unit, I just had to take it apart, pull out the memory chip, stick it in another Linux box, and modify /etc/sudoers so I could get root access.
comes from the opensprinkler pi, is rectified by the bridge, and runs the relay. The pump itself draws about 3A at 24V. It lifts the water clear up to the top of the hill, about 70 feet above the well.
Up the hill behind the house is our "exercise room" shed. In it, a grey PVC box containing an Rpi 3, and an "Opensprinkler Pi" board. It reliably connects to our home wifi. At this time, there are four stations. The irrigation control wire from the opensprinkler pi goes 50 feet from the shed to the fence. Then it goes 100 feet up the fence to the top of the hill. The another 80 feet
across the top of the hill. Then down the other side of the hill another 300 feet, where it arrives at the well station. It's a lot of wire.
I had the bright idea of making the wire colors match the standard resistor color code. So station 1 = brown, 2=red, etc.
Am in the process of stringing out a second cable to get more stations. The original cable - each color ends at its station. So if I bring a second cable up to the middle or so, I can regain
some of those wires...as I said, it's a LOT of wire.
To do some software maintenance on that unit, I just had to take it apart, pull out the memory chip, stick it in another Linux box, and modify /etc/sudoers so I could get root access.