Need help finding a type of floating ball valve

[11thHour]

Someone must know a thing or two about these. I'm looking for a type of floating ball valve where, for example, a small ball will float up in a narrow cylinder as the liquid rises, and eventually presses against a seal above it, therefore closing the escape of the liquid.

This valve needs to operate in a maximum 1" diameter top to bottom, and can be a few inches deep.

This is opposed to ball valve for a toilet, which requires much greater horizontal spacing for the ball to float up.

wrong kind:

 

[Possessed Freak]

invert a hamster drinking bottle. Replace ball bearing with one that floats.

 

[11thHour]

Very cool idea, Possessed Freak. That's the type of valve I'm looking for. Optimally it would be something I can mount on a lid inside the container, in this case in a 5 gallon water jug.

 

[11thHour]

Moved to Home and Garden...wow, it's different, like being inside an atrium!

 

[Howard]

Does 46585K41 on McMaster-Carr work?

Never mind, the valve is too large. Can you provide more detail on this application?

 

[Howard]

50195K93 will work for sensing. Wire it to a relay and have the relay energize a solenoid valve to open the flow. Use 120VAC for lower cost, if you are qualified to work with mains voltage.

The sensor should be wired normally closed (fails safe when continuity is lost from a bad connection) and the solenoid valve should also be normally closed so that the vessel doesn't overflow when power is lost.

EDIT: I don't think it's possible for there to be a valve that behaves as you describe. The incoming flow would prevent the ball from ever seating on the seal, unless the inlet pressure was stupidly low... in which case your vessel would take an ungodly time to fill.

 

[11thHour]

Does 46585K41 on McMaster-Carr work?

Never mind, the valve is too large. Can you provide more detail on this application?

Thanks, this is the right type of application but yeah that's pretty large.

EDIT: I don't think it's possible for there to be a valve that behaves as you describe.

There are two holes on the top lid, one for the inlet (water filling), and one outlet. So when the bottle is filled, the float valve on the outlet blocks water from escaping.

The main purpose is to daisy-chain many 5 gallon bottles in a row, so when filling, the first overflows to the second, and so on until the last one is full, which has a float valve to effectively turn off the water. If this is a really difficult valve to find, maybe the hamster spigot valve idea is actually a legitimate way to go.

Outside of that, maybe I could make one, using a small plastic ball contained in a plastic tube cylinder (ie turkey baster?) or something like that.

 

[Howard]

Sketch out your system please.

 

[11thHour]

Sketch out your system please.

Paint was clearly ahead of it's time.

 

[11thHour]

It may take 12-16 hours or more to fill these from an RO water filter system, so the goal is to be able to 'set it and forget it.'

 

[Howard]

How do you overflow into the second bottle without just making a waterfall around the neck of the first bottle? You'd have to start a siphon of some type (assuming you can have each one at a slightly lower elevation), and make sure it never went empty. Or, use a custom cap that has an air-tight seal around an inlet tube and an outlet tube.

 

[11thHour]

How do you overflow into the second bottle without just making a waterfall around the neck of the first bottle? You'd have to start a siphon of some type (assuming you can have each one at a slightly lower elevation), and make sure it never went empty. Or, use a custom cap that has an air-tight seal around an inlet tube and an outlet tube.

The water is pressurized by a water pump, and I use something like this screwed onto the lids for the inlets and outlets, creating a tight seal (except the last outlet of course.)

So as one bottle becomes filled, it simply overflows into the 2nd, etc. through it's attached hose. As a result of the water pressure, it will keep flowing out of the last bottle without a valve, so I'm creating an unattended method to cease the flow when all are filled.

 

[11thHour]

The barbed fitting looks tapered, almost such that I could put a plastic ball inside and use it for a float valve, but I'm pretty sure that's just an illusion.

 

[DrPizza]

I'm stumped on the benefit of doing this. In order to access the water, you either have to separate all of the bottles, else you have to use water pressure into bottle 1 to get water out of bottle 8. If you have water pressure at bottle 1, that negates the need for storing so many bottles of water. If you lose water pressure at bottle 1, and you're storing this for an emergency when you would be without water, then you'll have to disconnect all the bottles anyway - it would be less work in the long run to simply fill the bottles individually.

If you're doing this to, say, let water age and lose its chlorine for use in, say, aquariums, again, you may as well fill the bottles separately. As, if you use water pressure to move the water out, it's naive to think that the new water is going to fill the bottles one at a time, while pushing that volume of water on to the next bottle. In fact, if you turned on fresh water, you could have a current of the fresh water flowing out the last bottle within 1 gallon of water being added.

And, if you're going to use air pressure in the event of a power outage, as soon as the water level drops below the hose, you're going to be pushing air over a 3/4 filled bottle of water.

Maybe someone else can engineer a way around this, but I considered different lengths of hoses. If the "out" hose is near the bottom, then you can't force the air out that's above the opening of the hose. You'll simply end up with an inch of water in the bottle and pressurized air above it.

If the "out" hose is near the top, then you get a bottle of water, but there's no way to move the water from one bottle to the next without forcing more water through the system - if you force air through the system to push the water, it'll just bubble up to the "out" hose and the air will exit, leaving the water behind.

 

[11thHour]

It's easy to dismantle by removing hoses and lids, and replacing them with unmodified lids if I'm not going to use the water right away.

 

[waffleironhead]

How big of an opening do you have to work with? There are some ag float valves along those lines, but the smallest diameter I have found so far are 2 3/16".
https://www.plumbingsupply.com/livestock-watering-valves.html

Edit: I see the valves Howard posted earlier are similar.


Why can't you use a rectangle cake pan for you last container?

A wide shallow container that can use a more common float valve like you posted earlier. You may lose some of your water to open air contamination, but not much.

 

[11thHour]

How big of an opening do you have to work with? There are some ag float valves along those lines, but the smallest diameter I have found so far are 2 3/16".
https://www.plumbingsupply.com/livestock-watering-valves.html

Edit: I see the valves Howard posted earlier are similar.


Why can't you use a rectangle cake pan for you last container?

A wide shallow container that can use a more common float valve like you posted earlier. You may lose some of your water to open air contamination, but not much.

It looks like the inner diameter is only about 1.7". Using an alternate container after the last bottle is a great good idea, where I can choose the respective container based on the valves available instead of finding the elusive float valve to conveniently fit a 5 gallon jug. :thumbsup:

 

[DrPizza]

You're going to have trouble going from a float valve to jug #1 though.

I think I have a better idea for you: what about a sprinkler valve? They're pretty cheap, and all you need is an electrical float switch in the last jug, rather than a mechanical valve. You can run a sprinkler valve off a pair of 9V batteries.

E.g., this valve: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Orbit-1-in-FPT-Auto-Inline-NFC-Valve-57101/100006711 And a switch similar to this: http://www.amazon.com/Madison-M8000...5-1925566?ie=UTF8&refRID=1K3A6JEY73ZV6ZQKDB9D
You'll want to make sure that the switch turns off when it floats, rather than turns on. I assume they make them both ways. If not, a simple circuit with a relay would take care of things.

And, thanks - I'm now thinking about building an automated irrigation system for my wife's hanging baskets that I'll inevitably buy for her on Mother's day, and a couple of other things.

 

[Belegost]

You're going to have trouble going from a float valve to jug #1 though.

I think I have a better idea for you: what about a sprinkler valve? They're pretty cheap, and all you need is an electrical float switch in the last jug, rather than a mechanical valve. You can run a sprinkler valve off a pair of 9V batteries.

E.g., this valve: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Orbit-1-in-FPT-Auto-Inline-NFC-Valve-57101/100006711 And a switch similar to this: http://www.amazon.com/Madison-M8000...5-1925566?ie=UTF8&refRID=1K3A6JEY73ZV6ZQKDB9D
You'll want to make sure that the switch turns off when it floats, rather than turns on. I assume they make them both ways. If not, a simple circuit with a relay would take care of things.

And, thanks - I'm now thinking about building an automated irrigation system for my wife's hanging baskets that I'll inevitably buy for her on Mother's day, and a couple of other things.

I don't see an issue - setup the bucket (or whatever) with the float valve where the water comes in, but pipe the output of the float valve to the first jug. Then setup the jugs in a ring so that the output hose of the last jug empties into the bucket with the float valve.

Once all the jugs have filled the water will get to the bucket, and close the float valve, stopping the water before the first jug.

 

[echo4747]

http://www.washerwatcher.com/Hi_Lo_Controller.htm

edited to add: that this may not work because the conductivity of RO water may be too low

 

[waffleironhead]

You're going to have trouble going from a float valve to jug #1 though.

I think I have a better idea for you: what about a sprinkler valve? They're pretty cheap, and all you need is an electrical float switch in the last jug, rather than a mechanical valve. You can run a sprinkler valve off a pair of 9V batteries.

E.g., this valve: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Orbit-1-in-FPT-Auto-Inline-NFC-Valve-57101/100006711 And a switch similar to this: http://www.amazon.com/Madison-M8000...5-1925566?ie=UTF8&refRID=1K3A6JEY73ZV6ZQKDB9D
You'll want to make sure that the switch turns off when it floats, rather than turns on. I assume they make them both ways. If not, a simple circuit with a relay would take care of things.

And, thanks - I'm now thinking about building an automated irrigation system for my wife's hanging baskets that I'll inevitably buy for her on Mother's day, and a couple of other things.

I could be wrong, but I think the valve is going at the end of the series.
Think of the first carboy with a y fitting on the top, or two inlets in the stopper.
The valve only comes into play when the last carboy in the series gets full.

 

[DrPizza]

I could be wrong, but I think the valve is going at the end of the series.
Think of the first carboy with a y fitting on the top, or two inlets in the stopper.
The valve only comes into play when the last carboy in the series gets full.

Right. Where the water coming out is an integral part of where most float valves are. If the float valve is in bucket 10, I don't see how that valve is going to control the water going to bucket 1. That is, when people use float valves, the apparatus is placed in a vessel that holds the liquid. There's no reason for the float valve to operate a valve that controls the water to somewhere else. That is, a float valve doesn't work in-line with a water line - it works at the end of the water line. (Or, I'm just not thinking of one where it works in line.)

At a glance, people use such a setup as I suggested for controlling water for various aquarium setups, rather than a float valve.

 

[11thHour]

Right. Where the water coming out is an integral part of where most float valves are. If the float valve is in bucket 10, I don't see how that valve is going to control the water going to bucket 1. That is, when people use float valves, the apparatus is placed in a vessel that holds the liquid. There's no reason for the float valve to operate a valve that controls the water to somewhere else. That is, a float valve doesn't work in-line with a water line - it works at the end of the water line. (Or, I'm just not thinking of one where it works in line.)

At a glance, people use such a setup as I suggested for controlling water for various aquarium setups, rather than a float valve.

Thanks for the ideas, guys. Simplicity first, so a cheap accessible manual valve seems the most attractive.

The RO water pump is controlled by an electric switch triggered by water flow, so once the float valve at the end of the line cuts off the flow, the ro pump will automatically shut off. (actually, it will start filling the reserve RO water tank, and then shut off when filled.)

 

[echo4747]

Thanks for the ideas, guys. Simplicity first, so a cheap accessible manual valve seems the most attractive.

The RO water pump is controlled by an electric switch triggered by water flow, so once the float valve at the end of the line cuts off the flow, the ro pump will automatically shut off. (actually, it will start filling the reserve RO water tank, and then shut off when filled.)

What type of RO water demand do you need? How many gallons/ day do you need?

 

[11thHour]

What type of RO water demand do you need? How many gallons/ day do you need?

As little as 1, as much as ~40, while the first 10 will come from my reserve tank when drawn.