Vent valve - buying/building

[toypilot]

Hello, I need to find a vent valve to vent air from my WTC. I would be interested in building my own if I could get some plans with a parts list or something. Also would be interested in purchasing one already assembled. The vent valve I am replacing was situated on top of my ballast tank and used a solennoid to move the valve. Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks, Dave

[bob the builder]

Deep Sea Designs has details

Deep Sea Designs has details of Greg's ballast tank in his WTC drawings. It's basically just a spring-loaded pin with a rubber seal actuated by a servo. It's the same one that I'm using on My Project. It's pretty well dummy-proof and works very well.

If you're after another solenoid actuated vent, I got mine from Ships N' Things. It's a little crude, but you can modify it to seal pretty well.

Hope this helps.

[tkasinec]

Hi Dave, I have a

Hi Dave, I have a 12 volt solenoid type valve. The brand name is Clippard, # EV-2-12vdc. It is about .75 inch in Dia. and 1.50 inches long. It has an 1/8" barbed inlet and an 1/8" barbed outlet to attach plastic or silicone tubing to. The wires have been coated with silicone sealant making the valve waterproof. This valve can take pressures up to 90psi.

I was going to use this valve to release water from a presurized ballast tank. The problem with this setup is it took over 15 minutes to drain the tank. The Clippard valve, when open, has an opening of only 1/16th of an inch. This is to small to let water out at a high rate. I have since got a much larger valve to do the job.

However, the Clippard valve with the 16th inch opening would let air escape quite rapidly. It would work just fine for venting a ballast tank.

A typical setup would be to install a 1/8" barbed fitting with a 10-32 threaded end tapped into the ballast tank. This fitting can be gotten from the local hobby shop. It's known as a fuel pressure fitting for model airplane engines. With a plastic hose attached to this fitting, any convenient length, going to the Clippard valve inlet. The Clippard has 2 pre-tapped holes located on the bottom of the unit for mounting. The valve could be mounted on the ballast tank or anywhere else in the boats hull.

This valve is new and has only been used for bench testing as described above. I have no use for it in my application. If you are interested in the Clippard valve, I will sell it for $25.00 including the shipping within the 48 states.

You can e-mail me with any questions or comments at]jkasinec@juno.com[/email]

Best Regards,

Tom Kasinec, SCM #1009