A while ago I got my hands on a solenoid valve and wanted a project to use it in. If you followed my blog since the beginning, you would know that last summer my girlfriend and I started a
garden at her house. She has a hose that is run to raised beds with a garden soaker hose to water the plants. Although it isn't difficult to turn a spigot to begin watering the plants, it is a problem remembering to turn the water off. From this idea, I finally knew what I was going to use that solenoid valve for. Read on for the details.
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Spoiler alert: I wrote this blog post before realizing that the solenoid valve was normally open, when I expected it to be normally closed. The electronics were made specifically for one function and I cannot use them with a normally open valve. I will make new (and better!) control circuitry and create a new post about it. This post goes through everything I worked on to get the original design to where it is now. Look forward to Part 2 for details on the final working product.
