I have had a Suntouch controlling a pool/spa combination and a waterfall for the last year, all switched with Jandy actuators. I am now adding solar heating. The Suntouch has only 3 valve circuits and the waterfall will be displaced by the solar valve. Pentair does not offer an expansion module for this controller, preferring you to buy their larger 8 station controller at 2X the price of the Suntouch.
I would like to still control the waterfall (on/off) with the existing actuator, even if it is just with some sort of home brew switch/module not controlled by the Suntouch since the valve is difficult to get to, but I need to know the type of signal that drives the actuator. There are still "feature" circuits open on the Suntouch, but they are relays and are on/off only. My thought is to build something that when a feature relay is activated it will drive the actuator from off to on and on to off.
According to the installation instructions the actuators are 24 VDC, but there is no indication about how the actuator is triggered to move? What sort of signal or voltage switching is required to signal the valve to move and how does it know when to stop?
I would like to still control the waterfall (on/off) with the existing actuator, even if it is just with some sort of home brew switch/module not controlled by the Suntouch since the valve is difficult to get to, but I need to know the type of signal that drives the actuator. There are still "feature" circuits open on the Suntouch, but they are relays and are on/off only. My thought is to build something that when a feature relay is activated it will drive the actuator from off to on and on to off.
According to the installation instructions the actuators are 24 VDC, but there is no indication about how the actuator is triggered to move? What sort of signal or voltage switching is required to signal the valve to move and how does it know when to stop?