I have been making slow progress on the autogates- a lot of distractions plus a bit of "two steps forward, one step backwards" - I was never one to avoid doing things twice:eusa_doh::eusa_doh:
Anyway, while finishing up the pneumatics I realized I needed flow restrictors to slow down gate actuation speed. I had the restrictors but had to adapt them to my plumbing. Luckily, that just required some on-hand parts and a dozen very small band clamps.
Also, since I want gate activation to start the DC (not stop it however- personal decision), I needed a way to do that. Though they are initiated almost the same way, I wanted the DC to start when a gate was opened, not when a machine was turned on, so I was initially going to add micro switches or magnetic proximity switches to each gate. That would have required making and adding a bracket to mount the switch (and maybe magnet) and additional wiring to every gate. Then I came up with another idea- since my 24V solenoid valves are all powered by the same transformer, why couldn't I use a circuit mounted to/near the transformer to sense when a solenoid valve was activated and use that to turn on the DC? One caveat, it would need to be a momentary switch, so I would still have the option of turning off the DC when a gate was open.
As I mentioned previously, tinkering runs in my family, so I posed this problem to my EE brother in CA. Not only did he come up with a circuit, he drew it on the computer, dug out some of his long unused circuit board supplies, then constructed and wired the circuit board to do what I needed!
Using a household iron he transferred his computer drawn circuit tracings from a laser printer generated paper copy (on the right) to create "resist tracings" on the circuit board blank (on the left).
Then he used an acid bath to etch away the excess copper to yield the circuit board:
The completed circuit board:
I should receive and have it installed by early next week!!!!
Anyway, while finishing up the pneumatics I realized I needed flow restrictors to slow down gate actuation speed. I had the restrictors but had to adapt them to my plumbing. Luckily, that just required some on-hand parts and a dozen very small band clamps.
Also, since I want gate activation to start the DC (not stop it however- personal decision), I needed a way to do that. Though they are initiated almost the same way, I wanted the DC to start when a gate was opened, not when a machine was turned on, so I was initially going to add micro switches or magnetic proximity switches to each gate. That would have required making and adding a bracket to mount the switch (and maybe magnet) and additional wiring to every gate. Then I came up with another idea- since my 24V solenoid valves are all powered by the same transformer, why couldn't I use a circuit mounted to/near the transformer to sense when a solenoid valve was activated and use that to turn on the DC? One caveat, it would need to be a momentary switch, so I would still have the option of turning off the DC when a gate was open.
As I mentioned previously, tinkering runs in my family, so I posed this problem to my EE brother in CA. Not only did he come up with a circuit, he drew it on the computer, dug out some of his long unused circuit board supplies, then constructed and wired the circuit board to do what I needed!
Using a household iron he transferred his computer drawn circuit tracings from a laser printer generated paper copy (on the right) to create "resist tracings" on the circuit board blank (on the left).
Then he used an acid bath to etch away the excess copper to yield the circuit board:
The completed circuit board:
I should receive and have it installed by early next week!!!!
