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Timed Shutoff Valve |
by darren baucum |
After flooding my carpet at least half a dozen times in exactly the same manner, my wife said I had to do something different. My Reverse Osmosis/DeIonizing (RO/DI) filter is under the bathroom sink. I attached a 30-foot output line to the filter, so I could run water out to the reef tanks for
refilling the top-off water containers without doing any heavy lifting. The problem is that I just can't remember to turn the water off several hours later when the top-off containers are full, and they end up overflowing onto the carpet :( To solve the problem, I made a timed shutoff valve which can be dialed in to shut off after a set number of hours or gallons. It is very easy to make using the following easy-to-find parts: * Rain Bird Automatic Sprinkler Valve 3/4' (CP-075) from Lowe's, $11.61 The necessary cover plate is a regular lightswitch cover, not the plate with the big rectangular hole (I bought the wrong one). The wires from the A/C adapter can be hooked up to the sprinkler valve either way; proper operation is not dependant on polarity. Hook one wire from the A/C adapter directly to the valve. Run the other wire through the timer. Place the valve assembly in the water line such that the water goes through the valve before it goes through your filter because the valve contains brass and who knows what else that could leach copper into the water and cause harm to your tank inhabitants. I threw the stuff together in about 15 minutes, and the shutoff valve works great. My RO/DI filter is rated at 25 gallons per day. I get about a gallon an hour from it, so the numbers on the timer are also gallons. I almost bought one of those spring-wound mechanical lawn-watering timer valves that you hook a garden hose to (for ~$15), but it looked cheaply made and unreliable. With that valve however, you would not need the timer switch or the A/C adapter--so along with the plumbing hardware, it would cost about $22. The timer switch worked so well for the shutoff valve that I hooked up a one hour timer switch to the power head in my top off/kalkwasser tank to mix kalk. That was another situation where I often forgot to unplug the power head after the kalk mixed for 10-15 minutes. Now I just crank the timer switch to 15 minutes and forget about it. |
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This picture shows the main parts I used to make the timed shutoff valve. |
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| This picture shows the parts assembled. |
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| This picture shows the timed shutoff valve attached to my RO/DI filter.
I also made a feeding timer using Norm D'Allura's plans that will shut off your main pump for a while when you feed the tank. I used the timer switch mentioned above and a 10A 120VAC Plug-In Relay from Radio Shack (Cat. No. 275-217c) for $6.99.
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Maui Molokini
