Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | Todd P - 1/28/2024 22:50
Thank you for the excellent explanation. In the pin out that I found for the auxiliary plug online pin number 8 is auxiliary valve one, so I will use that to trigger the master valve.
I jumped to the conclusion it used boom 6 because that is what the fast valve was was connected to(apparently only using the power and ground) and that line had a blue with white stripe wire zip tied back to the boom 6 wires. So I concluded (incorrectly )that must be the trigger wire.
Can you explain the wiring for the fast valve? On my system it appears to use the power and ground from boom 6 and the servo open and closed pins from channel 1. How does the monitor and fast valve handle the transition from servo valve to full close.
Thank you again very much for your help.
First there was the Standard Control valve. It is a ball valve whose purpose is to adjust the flow in a system where there is a Single or Master ON/OFF valve after it. The control valve moves quite slowly so precise adjustment is possible. The ON/OFF valve moves quickly and is either fully open or fully closed.
The drive train in the Standard Control valve uses a series of gears to reduce it speed considerably. A circuit board is involved that contains a pair of limit switches. These limit switches allow the motor to run from completely closed to about 85% open. The purpose is only to control the rate. The reason the valve only opens about 85% is that the last 15% of the travel of the ball doesn't change the flow rate much and could be counter productive.
This valve is not used to stop the flow on a normal Headland. On a normal Headland, when the operator shuts off the Master, the ON/OFF valve closes quickly but the Standard Control valve stays at its current location. That means it will be in approximately the correct position when application resumes. It can stop the flow by going to full decrease until the valve is completely closed but this is not the normal operation. Because the motor is geared down considerably it can be powered directly by the Increase/Decrease pair of wires. These wires would be green and yellow with a genuine Raven wiring harness.
This was how all the Raven Accu-Flows were setup for the first several years. At a point in time, Dickey John came out with a competitive system that only used a single valve and was cheaper. Raven's response was to come out with a cheaper system also. One way to cheapen up a system was to go from the two valve system where one valve handled the rate and the valve following it handled the ON/OFF function to a Single valve that did both.
Raven called this their Fast Close Valve. This valve performs both the duties of control and ON/OFF. In operation, it needs to close quickly on the Headlands. One way to do that would is eliminate the gear train of the Control valve. Then the problem is that without the gearing, the ball turns much harder. The solution was to add a circuit board with a driver board that used an outside power source to actually do the work of running the motor. This is why the Fast valve requires an external power source (the extra two wires) and the Standard Control valve does not.
Another consequence of not gearing down the motor is that it is difficult to make minor adjustments in the position of the ball valve. With a Standard Control valve the system or the operator can give a short corrective shot of electricity of the proper polarity to run the motor to either open it a bit more or close it down slightly. Since the motor is not geared down the only way to make small adjustments is to give extremely short corrective shots to the motor. Actually in automatic operation with a Fast Close valve, if the calculated applied rate is a bit low, the system will decide to make a correction. Since it is likely that the corrective action will be too large, the system might send out two shots of the increa polarity and then a shot of reverse polarity to avoid overshooting the target rate. This results in poor control under certain situations.
Another consequence is that when the Master is shut off, the system applies full constant decrease to close the valve until the close limit is reached. When application resumes, the system has no knowledge of how far open the ball needs to be. Its only choice is to go to full increase until the calculated applied rate exceeds the target rate and then back off to achieve the desired rate. Again this can make for erratic operation under certain situations.
This is why many of us that have worked with and on the Fast Close systems have a negative attitude about them. They are also difficult to troubleshoot.
But back to your question. You ask about changing the setup from the Fast Close arrangement to the Standard Control valve arrangement. With a Raven controller such as a 440/450, the behavior of the control valve is dictated by an initial setting. Unless the 440/450 is extremely old, it will have some initial settings such as US, SP1 etc. One of these settings is the Control Valve type. The choices vary with age but one choice will always be Standard, Fast or Fast Close. On the single window displays this is spelled out. On the older displays the abbreviation of C-SD, C-F or C-FC are the options. Newer controllers also have some PWM choices also.
With your Ag Leader Direct Command setup, you make the choice within the setup menu for the valve type.
Your observation that the previous owner used the power and ground from boom 6 for the Fast Close valve and the Servo open/closed from the Channel 1 plug is likely correct as it seems very reasonable.
You will no longer need power and ground for your Standard Control valve but you will need power and ground for you new extra Master valve. Those power and ground wires can be repurposed for power/ground for the new Master Control valve.
As mentioned in my earlier reply, the trigger for the new extra Master valve will come from an unused pin location in the upper right connector. It sounds as if you found that this is Pin number 8 for Auxiliary Valve One. I believe that is correct. I have never seen a need to use the Auxiliary Valve Two pin but it is available. Check that Auxiliary Valve One is set to behave as a Master ON/OFF valve rather than the other choice which is a Master Dump Valve.
Also be aware that the meter cal for NH3 will the Raven liquid meter cal divided by 10. Do not use the Raven Meter Cal stamped on the tag for NH3. That number is a modified number to work with Raven controllers. So for example if you flow meter tag indicates 720 for spray, enter 72.0 as the meter cal in the Ag Leader setup.
When you choose the controlling product as "N" you will then be able to enter in your desired rate of Actual "N" per acre in pounds as is customarily done. The Ag Leader will make the necessary conversions to the meter cal internally. Should you use the Raven NH3 meter cal divided by 10, the conversion from gallons to pounds actual gets involved twice. The result is you only apply about 1/4 of what you had in mind. I made that mistake with my first tank.
Also remember that the implement switch is involved. You must either have a working implement switch or it must be jumpered. Otherwise the system will not open the ON/OFF valve. For an initial test, you will need to enter a target rate other than zero, have auto swath OFF (inactive), High current power to the Liquid Module as well as the various ON/OFF valves and the implement switch jumpered or bar lowered. The LED on the module should be blinking green indicating healthy CAN communication. There is no indicator for the high current power, a meter is needed to check it. This is a common oversight.
Partial testing can and should be done without a tank. Obviously not all testing can be performed without a tank but it is worth the effort to check out what you can.
Edited by tedbear 1/29/2024 09:25
|
Raven fast valve to two valve conversion.
