Garden hose valve
I'm replacing the manual shutoff for my family's summer-house garden tap — currently buried half a metre down in the workshop floor, under a shelf — with a motorised ball valve I can operate from a switch indoors, so I can shut the line off and drain it before winter without digging. The first build drives a CWX-15Q valve (CR05 control scheme) from a single switch using a four-transistor circuit instead of a microcontroller, cutting power at the valve's limit switches at each end of travel.
Log entries
| Ref | Date | Entry |
|---|---|---|
| LOG-03 | 2026-06-25 | Stuffing the first board (with the parts I actually own) The boards arrived in black, I'd specced parts I don't own (JST PH, the diode, the resistors), and after swapping the garbage Temu solder for a 2 % silver reel from Kjell I soldered what I had on hand. |
| LOG-02 | 2026-06-13 | From breadboard to my first PCB Turning the four-transistor circuit into my first home-made PCB — all through-hole, two mistakes Claude caught, and an order off to PCBWay. |
| LOG-01 | 2026-06-12 | Motorizing the summer-house valve with four transistors Driving a CR05 motorised ball valve from a single switch with a discrete-transistor circuit, tested on a breadboard. |