Hi all, I am planning my irrigation system with Hydrosys and I would like to make it as efficient as possible. I want to collect rain water to then use it to irrigate my meadow and plants/bushes.
The idea is to use a water tank to be positioned underground, something like this:
Below the simple scheme I have in my mind:
Let's say I want to water my bushes and plants, in this situation the power of the pump should be just enough to guarantee a drip irrigation along the lines 1 & 2 in the scheme (for sprinkler watering the power should be calculated according to the meadow's size). Pump could be either external to the tank or a submersible one. In case of the submersible option, valve no.1 should be moved after the pump outside the tank.
1) Planned irrigation starts
2) Hydrosys, by using the ultrasonic sensor, detects the level of water in the tank. Now you can have 3 different scenarios:
3) If the water in the tank is above a set minimum level, it opens valve no.1 and switches on the pump. It opens also the valves for line 1 and 2, plants and bushes get watered and are happy
3a) If water goes below a minimum level, the ultrasonic sensor detects it, Hydrosys stops pumps and closes valve 1. At the same time it switches the water supply to aqueduct, by opening valve no.3, irrigation continues until the end
3b) If water is already below the minimum level, the ultrasonic sensor detects it and Hydrosys switches the water supply to aqueduct, by opening valve no.3, irrigation continues until the end
4) End of irrigation, closing of all valves / switching off the pump (if case of scenario in point no.3)
Questions:
can an ultrasonic sensor be added to the system? In my situation i would need a sensor to tell me how much water is inside the tank, as it's positioned underground
can the water supply be switched from tank to aqueduct according to the different levels of water inside the tank?
Is there anything right in what I have been describing so far? :)
All suggestions and feedbacks are welcome :)
Umbe
Hi Umbe,
I have a very similar setup in place already - it is not ideal but working quite ok.
I am using basically two input water lines, one is the normal fresh water line, the other one is from the rain tank.
The rain tank has a underwater pump like this one - https://benz24.de/graf-tauch-und-saugpumpe-autom.html?utm_campaign=google-shopping&utm_medium=shopping&utm_source=google&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_8Hs_5-J6gIVOYBQBh3EAw0ZEAQYASABEgLsHPD_BwE
It always has power and simply delivers water, when it is needed (when you open the valve). If the valve is closed, or there is no water inside the rain tank, the pump will shutdown itself.
This makes it relatively easy to grab the water from the rain tank - all I need to do is having a magnetiv valve, controlled by HydroSys which I open, when I want to get the water and additionally I open the valvle of the watering line I want to start with. Using the "powerpin" functionality, Hydrosys can be configured to trigger two relays at the same time (one for the rain tank valve, the other for the watering valve).
Thanks, and congrats for the new house.
I suppose June and July well be busy months for you :).
When you need, we are here.
Cheers,
Angelo
Ciao Angelo,
First of all than you for taking the time to help with my project, very much appreciated.
All your points are very good ones, pump 220v will be my choice.
I currently have no additional information about garden size, pressure, flow and so on because i am buying a house and I will be able to get the keys at the end of June. After that I will eb able to measure the garden, define the zones for irrigation and so on. Of course the decision of the pump will be subject to all these variables. I will definitely update this post as soon as I have more info and ask for your advise. In the meantime I will start getting used to the software by irrigating a single line of plants and understanding all the options you created on the software. Also, your board is on the way, I can't wait for it. Keep up the good work, your project is absolutely amazing.
Thank you!
Umbe
Ciao,
Regarding the Pump. The selection of the pump is very important for the system to work properly. Depending on the size of your garden and the types of sprinklers you use, it is important to select the right "size" of pump in terms of power/flow/pressure. I suggest you to go with 220v pump, the main reason is that with 220v you do not need to have a high power converter to 24v which is going to be expensive and an additional thing that can break. Pumps at 220v are also generally cheaper and there are plenty in the market.
The submersible pumps like the one in the picture are generally used in wells, for the tanks normal pumps are used which stay externally to the tank, maintenance is easier ans should be less expensive.
In my garden I have a 220v pump with 1HP (0.75Kwatt) installed more than 10 years ago and still running.
Regarding the the pump you have indicated, this is a submersible pump which includes a switch. As for my understanding the circuit is sealed and the float switch is directly attached to the pump. This will make it impossible to send any sort of ON/OFF signal to the hydrosys4 system. (It not going to get a "0" just because the pump shut down)
Other evaluation point together with pump size/flow/pressure is the section of the irrigation lines, the flow of the valve and the working tension (12v or 24v), the type of sprinklers.
Valves should be non latching.
My intention is not to scare you :) anyway if you can provide the approx length of your watering lines and the type of irrigation you are planning to use it would provide a better picture the situation.
As you can see there are many decision points in the design of the irrigation system, it can be a little difficult to get thing 100% right at first try without any experience, but it is not rocket science either.
Look forward to hear from you.
Ciao,
Angelo
Ciao Angelo,
I think we can skip completely valve 1 as said before, and it's true the pump does not stop the flow but i don't need that function.
For the electrical scheme it's quite clear, but when i get to it I will definitely ask you more information when I het to the building part :) The additional relay for the pump could be a good solution, if I go for a 220v. I found some pumps that work at 24v, maybe that could be a better integration for the system?
I have another idea regarding the pump and float switch. What about using an all in one system, pump + sensor like this one:
Does it make the installation any easier?
Example: Planned irrigation of line 1 starts, Hydrosys switches on the pump and open valve for line 1 in the manifold. If water in the tank finishes, the floating water sensor shutsd down the pump. Hydrosys gets the 0 shut down from the pump, and opens valve 3 to continue the irrigation using water from the aqueduct.
Does it make sense for you? Is it a possible integration in the system?
Thank you so much!
Umbe
Great!.
Regarding the valve 1 in your schema, I suggest to remove it not because the pump stops the flow (it doesn't) but seems that it is not performing any function there, the check valve will block the flow from aqueduct. Or maybe I missed something.
Regarding the electrical connections I made a schema so hopefully we have no ambiguity:
The relay on the Automation board should be used at low voltage according to valves voltage which commonly is 12v or 24v.
The pump on the other side can be 220v AC and can absorb some good amount of power, for this reason I think there should be another Relay that will directly control the pump and is safe for high voltage connections. (I know it's obvious but better to specify it).
Let me know if you need help for the system configuration.
Ciao,
Angelo
Dear Angelo,
I found the float switch you posted in the photo above, now it's clear what it is and how it works 😅😅
Ciao Angelo thank you for your reply.
Ok so valve no.1 to be removed, I guess the pump when off will stop the flow of the water from the tank?
For the sensor in the tank, if I use a classic level switch it should be supported by the board, right? I need to find one that fits the tank, unless you have any suggestion of model.. Or an ultrasonic analog output range up to 5 volts as suggested.
About valve 3 and pump: if understood well, I could use one relay to control both pump and valve 3, switching the power to one or the other, depending on the water level in the tank. But to do so I need something in between the relay and the pump and valve to switch the power, and that thing would be the object in the photo? do you have a link for it? I struggle to understand what it is :)
About the progression of events, Hydrosys can manage the process of:
check if water is above the set treshold
if yes, start pump and open the valves of the lines
if not, open valve 3 to use water from aqueduct
Is that correct? Is it something that has to written/implemented? Or is already in the software? I think of the interrupt page, maybe from there?
Regarding valves and pump, I am planning to use either 12v or 24v for the valves, depending on which is the cheaper solution. For the pump I am looking around, but if it was a 220v with less than 15 ampere, is it something that the relay on relay board should support, right?
Thank you and sorry for the looong post and many questions ;)
Umbe
Ciao Umbe,
your drawing is very nice, at least compared to mine...
Some considerations about the hardware,
I do not understand the purpose of the valve 1, seems it can be removed from the schema
The ultrasonic sensor it's a little overkill, in your case you just need to know if the level is below or above a threshold. I would prefer to use a classical level switch.
For the electrical connections, it is possible to use the relays as in normal watering setting to drive the irrigation valves that go directly the irrigation lines.
For the Pump and the Valve 3, it should be possible to use one relay as driver, let's call this relay as Main. This relay will be set to switch ON every time an irrigation valve is active.
The issue is now that the main should drive either the pump or the valve 3 depending on the tank water level.
In my opinion the easiest and cheap solution is to use something like this:
It should have three contacts, a common, a Normally Open and a Normally Closed. In this way it can be used to switch the current coming from the main relay to the pump or valve3.
I have no experience using ultrasonic sensors, anyway if it has an analog output in the range 0-5v it can be connected to the automation Board, in this way you can have a nice graph of the level of your water in the system.
Other things to consider is the voltage of the valve and the pump and how much power the pump needs. This will require a little more detailed analysis on the electrical side.
Hope this can help,
Saluti,
Angelo