Controling a solenoid valve with an Arduino

by fmarquis

I need to take some vacation time and unfortunately, while I don't have kids, I
have bonsais.
Like kids, these little critters need constant care and especially, water.
Each day.
Argh!
Why can't they drink beer/wine by themselves?
Anyways... Faced with no one close enough or willing enough to take care of
them, I decided to use solenoid valves and an Arduino to create my own watering
system.
At this point, it is easier and cheaper to buy an industry-made timer.

However, the final project will include watering based on a schedule and/or
humidity in the earth, and a wireless logging system that will tell me while I'm
away if everything is working as expected.
But let's start with the basic project, as this may be more than enough for the
regular plant...

Step 1: Backgound information

I will not talk (again) in details of the back EMF, why it is nasty and why you need
a flywheel diode, as I already discussed that in another instructable here. You
need that diode!
Solenoid valve: It is nothing more than a valve controlled by an electromagnet. It
is, like relays and motors, an inductive load (aka an IC buster, go read on back
EMF if it is not already done!). They usually come in two flavors: Normally Open
or Normally Closed. Normally refers to when-there-is-no-current-in-the-solenoid.
If you put pressurized water in a NC (Normally Closed) solenoid valve, water will
be blocked. If you power the magnet with the expected current / voltage, the
valve will open and the water will flow.
For NO (Normally Open), it is exactly the contrary.
Now, this is not the only variable. When current is flowing in the magnet, it
creates heat. Most solenoid valves are not for continuous use. They have to rest
and cool down between uses or they will fry. Read the small prints before
committing to buying! And think about you project: are you watering a garden
once or twice a day or are you filling an Olympic swimming pool with a garden
hose?
MOSFET : In a nutshell, a MOSFET is like a light switch. You apply some voltage
to the GATE terminal and the resistance between the DRAIN and the SOURCE
will drop, allowing a lot of current to pass. Heat will be generated by the tiny (but
real) internal resistance and you will need to dispose of it or risk melting your
MOSFET. Also, by design, nothing being perfect, they are quite vulnerable to
static electricity.
Here, we will use a N-Channel MOSFET, so don't be surprised if you see it
connected between the solenoid and the ground.
Power supply: As you can see, I only use one 12V lead-acid battery in this
project to power both the Arduino and the solenoid. Usually, this is not a good
idea...

Let me explain:
Your Arduino, according to the official site, can deal with 7-20 volts and they
recommend 7-12V, explaining that more than 12V can result in the board
overheating. The reason is that the Arduino uses a linear voltage regulator that
will get rid of the extra voltage by making some heat with it. If you give 7V 0.5A to
a linear regulator like the LM7805, you get 5V and 2Vx0.5A= 1W of heat. If you
give it 12.6V (typical voltage for a fully-charged lead-acid battery), you need to
get rid of 3.8W of heat. And do you see any heat sink on the board? No?
Actually, the board is the (very limited) heat sink.
This is the reason why I used a 85% efficient DC-DC buck converter that I had
previously made. As it is quite another project to built a switching regulator, I will
provide you with two clues. The first one (the inspiration for my own project) was
a project published in Nuts and Volts in June 2008 by Jim Stewart. I modified
their original design using information provided in the official datasheet of the
LM2576. If you are in a rush to built one, use the schematic on page 11 (figure
22) and read everything, paying extra attention on the layout guidelines,
stick to the recommended hardware and it will work. If you are not in a rush, I'll
try to publish an instructable on it when I'm finished with this watering thing...

Step 2: Getting the stuff...

This a simple project... The toughest part was not to find is the solenoid valves,
but the adapters...
Hardware

Solenoid valve: I got these 12V / 0.4 A NC valves quite cheap on Ebay . They
are working fine on domestic pressure. However, I should have pay a little bit
more for a valve threaded directly for garden hoses. See the next point...
Adapters: As my solenoid valve had threads for 1/2" (while a normal garden
hose is 3/4") I needed two adapters and a female/female adapter to connect two
hoses together. I got them from a general hardware store. Believe it or not,
together these are the most expensive pieces of this project!
What I was looking for (now I know, but I had to try many different adapters!) was
two 3/4" MH x 3/4" MIP x 1/2" tapped FIP. I have no idea what it means, but this
is what you are looking for and you need two of them! You will also need a 3/4"
hose x 3/4" hose solid bass double female swivel adapter.
A power source: I use a 12V lead acid battery for this project to power both the
Arduino and the solenoid. The unidentified piece of circuitry is a home made

switching regulator. Go back to the last step, background information, if you don't
know why it is there!.
MOSFET: I used a FQP50N06L for this project. Looking at the datasheet, it is
probably overkill here as nothing more than 12V 0.5A will be used.On the
positive side, I don't have to worry for thermal derating...
You can find the official datasheet here
The MOSFET is available from many distributors... Newark/Element
14 andDigikey sell them for less than 2,00$ each.
LED (Any color): Any LED will do, it is mostly for debugging purpose. It will be
on when the MOSFET is on, but it should be obvious if it is working as some
water should be flowing...
Resistor: I used a simple 330 Ohm resistor that was lying on my bench. The
idea is to make sure no more than 20 mA will flow through the LED. If you omit
the LED, omit the resistor.
Diode: That is the one guy you should not omit. A normal 1N4007 was used.
Wires: To connect everything
Breadboard : To support everything
Software

Arduino IDE

Step 3: Assembling the stuff

As I said previously, this is an easy built.

1. Get grounded and discharge all static electricity you could have on you. I work
on conductive foam and I always touch some part of my working bench
mostly made of steel.
2. Put your MOSFET in your breadboard. The TO-220 packaging may need a
little push to get the leads in the breadboard.
3. With the black part of the MOSFET (with the writing) facing you, the pin on the
left is the GATE, the one in the middle is the DRAIN and the one on the right
is the SOURCE.
4. Connect your Arduino digital pin 2 to the GATE
5. Connect the positive terminal of the 12V battery to the positive side of the
solenoid
6. Connect the negative terminal of the solenoid to the DRAIN
7. Connect the SOURCE to the negative terminal of the battery
If you chose to use a LED:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Stick the LED in the breadboard

Stick the resistor in the breadboard
Connect the resistor to your Arduino digital pin 10
Connect the negative terminal of you LED to GND

Don't power up anything just yet! Did you forget something? Where is your
diode???
It should be connected between the solenoid terminals, so that the little line on
the diode is closest to the positive terminal of the solenoid. I decided to put the
diode very close to the solenoid because:
1. There are two very convenient little holes waiting for the diode in the crimps;
2. I remember reading something about putting diodes as close as possible to
the inductive load, but I don't remember the details. Any references anyone?

Step 4: A simple sketch

This is the "blink" sketch adapted for a MOSFET. Load the code in the Arduino
IDE and read the comments. This is *not* rocket science.

/*
MOSFET FQP50N06L - For BonsaiDuino
This sketch will blink a LED and at the same time, use the MOSFET to
open a 12V solenoid.
Arduino D10 : To LED (Through 330 Ohm Resistor)
Arduino D02 : To MOSFET Gate

Created by Francois Marquis for the Intructable "Controling a solenoid

valve with an Arduino"
This code is public domain, you can use it and play with it
*/
int ledPin = 10;
// Connect the pin to Arduino pin 10
int mosfetPin = 2;
// Connect the MOSFeT Gate (first pin on the
left, when writing on the chip is facing you) to Arduino pin 2
void setup()
{
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(mosfetPin, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
digitalWrite(mosfetPin, HIGH);
delay(60000);
// Will turn both the LED and the
MOSFET on for 60s, it gives you plenty of time to see if water is
flowing as expected!
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
digitalWrite(mosfetPin, LOW);
delay(5000);
// Will shut down everything for 5s
and restart.
}

Step 5: To Heat Sink or Not to Heat Sink... The same

redundant question...
After trying my circuit at 28 degrees Celsius in the sun, I registered a max temp
for the MOSFET of 35 degrees and a max temp of 55 degrees Celsius for the
solenoid valve after three cycles of one minute back to back, with only five
seconds without power (using the sketch in the previous step). Considering I will
only use this circuit to water the plants for a minute or two each day, there is no
need for a heat sink.
Now, if your idea is to transform your backyard into a swamp to have a pet gator,
I strongly suggest:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Find another pet (Gators hate Canadian winter);

Check the temp both of your MOSFET and your solenoid;
Remember that temperature increase is usually not linear;
Install a big fat heat sink and a fan to be on the safe side;

Step 6: Scale it up!

My final design will involve 3 different zones, each controlled by a MOSFET.
Even if you have tons of pressure in your hoses or very short ones, it is not a
good thing to use all the solenoids at the same time. For one thing, if you are
running this on batteries like me, the less juice you pull from your battery , the
closest you will be to that expected Holy Grail of the Amp/Hour number written on
the battery. Yep, manufacturers don't tell you this, but batteries are not linear: the
more you ask from them, the less they will give you in the end!
To scale this to more zones, just use one digital pin per MOSFET. If you need
more, it is possible, but I'm not there yet (I have a backyard, not a golf course!).
Talking of batteries. as the Arduino is drawing 42 mA 24/7 and my solenoid is
drawing 400 mA for 2 minutes each day, my fully charged 12V 9 Amp/Hour
should last more than our Montreal summer...
With a 9 Amp/Hour fully charged, you have access to 108 000 mW/h of energy
(hum, probably less, as you don't want to deep discharge (and kill) you battery).
However, considering the 4.8W for 2 minutes (hence 160 mW/h in average) plus
the 0,247 W/h needed by the Arduino powered by a 85% efficient switching
power supply, you have a consumption of 407 mW/h...
With one solenoid. it means 265 days of use;
With two solenoids, it means 190 days of use;
With three solenoids, it means 148 days of use.
The cool thing is that I just found a nice little 12V, 12 Amp/h battery... Should give
me more than a summer even with three zones! So I'm not in such a hurry to
design my next project; a solar charger!

Step 7: In conclusion...
This is a work in progress; the final version including a three zones and a much
nicer sketch should be posted soon. But for now, you do have the tools and the
knowledge to create your own watering system!