Thank you very much. So now that you have had this installed for a year, is there anything you would change? Anything you would add?
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I donāt think I would change anything, itās been working great. I love being able to turn the hot tub on by voice/Google Home and being able to schedule it to turn on using IFTTT/Google Calendar integration.
Sorry I missed your post. When you start talking about two stages I get into unfamiliar territory, never experimented with it. Only thing I see offhand is that I would be hesitant to continually cut and reapply power to smart switches, I donāt think your mesh network would like certain devices being online sometimes and offline other times, might mess with the routing.
Well as far as what I can contribute Iāll post pics and videos when I get home. For my pool I used a particle photon wifi adriuno type device to control some of the 24 volt jandy valve actuators made by intermatic. I then have since changed out one of the jandys with an electric ball valve cause believe it or not I found that better than a jandy for this particular application. The actuators have adjustable cams that can stop the actuator at set positions but you only have 2 choices with the photon I was able to code it using timing to be able to stop in whatever position I want all based on timing. In my case I needed three positions. I also have it controlling my pool light which is led and changes colors when it is cycled on and off fast which has also allowed me some crude smart color changing Ability. My final plans include upgrading to a variable speed pump that takes speed control inputs from external relays. This will make the photon an all in one for me controlling my valves pump and lights. Currently my pool pump is single speed and on a ge zwave outdoor 240 volt large appliance module. It sounds more difficult than it is as when I started this project I had zero programming experience.
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Could this be hooked to the valve to power and control it?
Hey everyone just reading up on the actuators and how I can add them to my smartthings control. Now that Iāve installed a variable speed pump I need to turn off the water feature or cleaner more often. If I start with a standard 24v plug in transformer, plugged into a zwave outlet, couldnāt I wire the transformer directly to the actuator without the relay in the middle? I can then use smartthings to power the trans/actuator for only the amount of time it takes to move the valve to the stop, then cut power. Only powering for that amount of time for each change. If that isnāt possible can anyone tell me why? Maybe Iām missing the point of the relay. Thanks
Smartthings is not very reliable at scheduling things that need less than a minute precision.
I might agree with that, but its not life or death if something is late a few min, the worst case is some pool water spills for a bitā¦ My real question is why the relay is neededā¦ Can I run the actuator off a 24v transformer direct?
My understanding is that the relay for actuator is used to switch between opening and closing.
There are 3 wires on the actuators. One is common, and the other two control direction. If you apply power to one, the valve turns one way. If you apply power to the other, the valve turns the other way. So the relay acts as the switching mechanism to control valve direction. If you connected one wire directly to the transformer the valve would only go one direction, stop when it hit the limit switch, and never move again. If you connected both, youād probably burn up the actuator.
For anyone else who is wondering, I havenāt touched this setup in the 2+ years since I installed it, and itās still working perfectly.
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Thank you for the explanation, I didnāt realize the wiring was like that. I need to build this for sure, just today my pool spilled water for 4 hours, thankfully only from 1 of the 3 deck jetsā¦ so strange that the rpms that ran them yesterday didnāt todayā¦ Thatās why I need to just shutoff the water feature anytime I want to run low rpm.
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Sorry for bringing up this old post, can it be any smart switch or it need special requirement like amp, voltage etc?
Hi,
I realize this is an old post, but I just finished this build a few weeks ago, so I thought Iād post the minor changes I made
I really didnāt want to call out an electrician. I bought a project box, cut the cord off a power strip, and set it up to plug into the wall. The relay and transformer were still available on Amazon, and I used them. As a switch, I bought a simple light switch that was controllable by Alexa. All went together pretty easily. I have a simple case with one valve, and most of the diagrams didnāt match my situation exactly, so I have included it here in case it helps someone else.
My thanks to everyone else in this thread! I never would have tried this without your help.
I know this is an old thread but to anyone interested I have added temperature control to this setup. I did this using a Qubino Z-Wave Plus On Off Thermostat 2 ZMNKID3. Took a couple of tries to get it to connect, and also needed to change the default device type Smartthings assigned to it to Qubino Thermostat in the IDE. I have the temperature sensor from the Qubino ran to a thermowell in a PVC tee I cut into the piping loop. Everything is working great. I have updated the wire diagrams to show the added Qubino Thermo.
