bunnings gardenmate water tap timer / modifying pic code

Bunnings have a great water timer with two rotary switches that controls a ball vlave that shuts off water from your tap. $25 It has a single PIC that controls the logic. I wanted to dl the code from the pic and study it and reflash my own code. Anyway of hacking into the code of this pic?

Reply to
tuppy
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They actually use a "PIC" do they? What is the number on the uC? And as far as modifying the code goes it isn't going to be overly difficult to re-write it from scratch anyway.

James

Reply to
James

I just got two Holman garden timers from Bunnings, only $30 and has a ball vale too, powered from two AA's, and has a very nice LCD with membrane control panel. Very flexible in the programs you can set, so no need to modify the code. Even comes with a nice rubber boot to slip over the front to protect it. And amazingly it's made in Australia, excellent quality, I'm impressed.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

It's this one:

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The one with the rain sensor input was $60, the one without was $30. Bargain.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

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I know the one the OP is talking about. I bought a couple about 5yrs ago for $20 each so I guess they are probably less than that now. They aren't really any good if you are under water restrictions though as the simple timer only allows a singular time interval so doesn't work for "odds & evens" watering. Bought them to water some newly laid turf. Two months later upto stage 4 restrictions and it of course the lawn died anyway (by which time we'd sold the house thankfully) :)

For $30 for the ones you are talking about I wouldn't even bother pulling the cover of the cheapies, not worth the stuffing around.

James

Reply to
James

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Looks good. I just bought a Galcon for about $90. One disadvantage: It comes on with a jerk and the water pressure stresses the joints (one of which popped off as a result). Does this one "turn" on rather than "lurch" on?

Reply to
Sally

. . .

I got a different "Gardenmate" timer from Bunnings about 9 months ago

- I think it was around $30.

It has a LCD display and can be set for every second, third, etc day but also for certain days of the week.

I found that there were also Toro/Pope timers on the market that are physically slightly different to that Gardenmate one but are probably using the same LCD and controller as the capabilities and way of programming them appear to be identical. Just a week ago I saw that Woollies had a similar one branded "The Green Gardener" for $20.

Andy Wood snipped-for-privacy@trap.ozemail.com.au

Reply to
Andy Wood

. . .

The ones I have seen use a rotating ball with a hole through the centre for the valve, so they do not turn on and off suddenly like most solenoid valves.

Also, the valve only uses power when turning on or off which makes battery operation practical

Andy Wood snipped-for-privacy@trap.ozemail.com.au

Reply to
Andy Wood

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...

Yes, the Holman has a ball valve that turns very slowly (maybe takes

10 seconds or so), and it's advertised as being anti-water hammer.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

Yep, on the Holman unit I measured just over 0.1A from the two AA's while the ball was rotating (around 10 seconds or so as stated before), and then the usual uA's of sleep current.

BTW, great to see an Aussie company making an excellent and cheap consumer eletronic product in Australia.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

I too have to lcd version of the garden mate but when you open it it just has a black blob custom lsi chip and lcd controlling identical motor, limit switches setup as the $5 cheaper two rotary switch version gardenmate. The two knob version has discrete components around a pic (number rubbed off). I thought I could make it solar powered, have a 415mhz reciever and have it turn on/off remote control. Reason?? To gravity drain a watertank on my property into irrigation tubing. The reason it needs the pic logic apart from the timing function is also for the limit switches so it knows when to stop the motor spinning the ball at the off position. Also fiddling with it (ie unsoldering the limit switch wires) the unit knew there was a failure and didnt want to activate.

Reply to
tuppy

If the number is rubbed off, how do you know it's a PIC??

BTW, if they went to the trouble of rubbing the number off, then it's almost certainly code protected too, so you can't read the code out.

So ditch the electronics that came with it and add your own controller. Don't waste your time trying reverse engineer what's there. You could custom design your own board to fit the existing mounts and everything.

Good to see the programmer was thinking then.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

Hi Dave

Rushed off and bought the Holman timer at Bunnings. Great. My water pressure is 740 kPa, which is within the unit's specs. I wonder if you find yours leaking at the joints. Haven't tried it yet as it's 2.11 am! BTW, I note they make a point of slow turn off, but it's turn ON that causes grief here. Obviously the same action, but the long grinding of gears sounds a bit expensive on batteries.

Reply to
Sally

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...

Like I posted before, it's only about 0.1A or so for 10 seconds or so each time it switches. That would give over 20 hours of continuous operation on Alkalines. If it only switches for 20 seconds a day, that's still a few years worth of battery life.

Mine is hooked up to the water tank pump, don't know the pressure off- hand, but doesn't leak.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

740kPa is a shirtload of pressure, but there's no reason a device designed for mains pressure should have a problem. By comparison a tank pump probably cuts out at about 350 kPa. I'm interested in the ball valve idea, as conventional solenoids require a certain amount of water pressure to open and close reliably, which is a problem if you're trying to use low-pressure gravity feed.
Reply to
Poxy

Reply to
Suzy

That's exactly why I was curious to measure it! My first thought was "those poor AA's"!

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

Yes. With two waterings a day (normal) that's two ons and two offs, makes 40 seconds. Your estimate of the life of a Duracell AA then?

Reply to
Suzy

On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 14:56:54 +1000, "Suzy" put finger to keyboard and composed:

This is the Duracell AA datasheet:

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The life of an AA Duracell is 20 hours at 100mA, so your batteries should last ...

20 x 3600 / 40 = 1800 days

- Franc Zabkar

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Reply to
Franc Zabkar

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