I am doing automatic garden watering (just started first time). Do you know list of electric valves which are compatible only and only with the same brand controllers? I am trying to figure out which brands to avoid.
In other words I want to choose brand which doesn’t force me to buy expensive brand controllers to control electric valves for watering. HA will make decisions when to open / close. I only need electric valve with 12 V / 24 V input to open / close.
At least I think so.
Extra question:
How to use water in barrel underground for drip-line? Pump will make pressure, but drip-line output is low. Will it damage pump and drip-line? I assume yes. How to solve it?
TL; DR;
I want to buy everything from one brand to make it perfectly fit into each other
Which brands to avoid?
Which brands to buy? I live in EU (product availability).
Not obvious things to which I should pay attention choosing all parts. Any hints?
After research I assume I will need: inputs:
valve on city water line (plug in with garden hose when needed)
pump in barrel water collector (“free” water)
mesh filters
outputs
electric valves to choose output controlled by 12 / 24V inputs. Batteries better?
If you are ok with a DIY solution: I use simple Solenoid Valves (Rainbird 24v and AE 12v)+ ESP based Relay boards (flashed with Tasmota but ESPHome should work as well).
It has been working flawlessly for the last few years (Rainbird Lawn sprinklers + drip lines for plants). I guess you’ll need metric threads but you should easily find it on AE.
Also using Irrigation unlimited integration for automation and Dashboard cards.
As an irrigation installer I use a medly of differing components from various manufacturers, irrigation is pretty straight forward and there’s not too much room for a fully proprietary system.
I’m in Canada and can’t speak to your availability, but I use Rainbird 1800 series PRS 30 popup heads with Hunter MPR series nozzles. I like Rainbird for cost and reliability and would normally avoid Hunter products as they are unnecessarily expensive, but the MPR nozzles are amazingly efficient and effective.
Rainbirds drip lines are also fairly priced, but I’ve changed that up depending on pricing. I can’t speak to a pump that can handle the resistance though for your barrel.
Any brand of valve should function the same, the solenoid usually requires 24 volts AC and doesn’t care what supplies the electricity. Again I tend to use Rainbird for valves.
Controllers however… I will plug the ever loving crap out of Rachio controllers, they are the bomb. The app is amazing and straight forward compared to any other I’ve tried. They will automatically check local forecasts and adjust watering according to rain/wind/freezing/ground saturation/whatever. You also have the option to hook up your own weather station for this info, they naturally connect with Tempest (native HA integration available) weather stations. They also have an open API and a native HA integration maintaned by a core dev. I did not know that last part when I fell in love with these for my clients, it was just icing on the cake.
Poly pipe and fittings tend to be universal to your area and they all compare the same generally speaking.
I’ll leave this with that I would avoid Orbit products in general, they tend to be cheap and don’t last. The exception would be their manifolds to feed 1/4" planter lines.
Edit: Avoid DC latching solenoids to control valves, they are pricy.
It is after midnight, so I will reply shortly and read more carefully tomorrow.
After more research I am thinking about Gardena or Rainbird (because recommendation).
I use BleBox - Sterowniki smart home WiFi for controllers for almost everything in my house. It is polish brand, but product are high quality comparing to world. At least my impression. I plan to use one of this to control input 24V (or other). These are not expensive, so I will not have to do DIY from basics. Just use HA to tell controller when to open 24V on output. At least I think controlling water valves is as simple as that.
@HappyCadaver Do Rachio controllers have direct integration with HA without brand routers? Actually the same question for Rainbirds.
Can you expand your experience about Gardena vs Rainbird?
Any benefits using for example Rachio controller vs HA + 24V controller? I assume you install Rachio on the first place, because you can’t say your clients to use HA Is it correct?
Yes the solenoid that controls the valve really is that simple… 24 volt on, 0 volt off.
I don’t use Gardena, they are an off the shelf brand around here and I don’t expect any of their products to last based on my experience with their other products.
LOL pretty much, I also hadn’t started using HA when I discovered Rachio. That said Rachio does already have the code logic in place for weather/season adjustments which means less work on the user end to automate all that.
Rachio’s open api with the native integration does allow for overiding their app/code with HA automations, but I wouldn’t do that for my clients. I might be tempted to do it for myself if I had an irrigation system though .
I use rainbird rotors and like Rick said their stuff is rock solid and has great features. Also MPR Hunter nozzles in Hunter or rainbird pop ups. Here in the uk Toro stuff was the rage when my system was originally installed in 2005 and much of that stuff still works so if that is locally available only choice mu experience is, it’s good, but Toro seem to be much less of a player these days.
I’d avoid Rainbird controllers. The v1 app was basic and unreliable. The v2 app installation has uograded the wifi module so that HA can no longer talk to it. There is currently no HA integration for the current Rainbird firmware.
@kwladyka a Blueprint was just released that might be of some interest to you to save time with writing automations and whatnot. I Haven’t looked at the yaml itself yet, but it seems to cover some good ground.
Is it this one which you recommend? It has HA integration, right? It will work with RainBird valves.
Any alternative? It is hard to find this controller in my country. Maybe I will find it to import from somewhere if decide to use instead of simple 12 / 24 V controller.
Is it correct?
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