Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | From your drawing it appears you have 5 sections. Here's one that would work for four sections wired like your drawing. Each button could toggle a section ON/OFF for testing.
I use this one with my shed door opener (Open, Close, Stop and Lights Toggle). Similar systems are available with more channels but the price seems to jump considerably.
I once used a 4 channel remote with a 5 section sprayer. I wired my tee's so that the small center section cycled ON/OFF with the neighboring section to its left. That way a 4 channel system could be used with 5 sections. I needed to use diodes to prevent back feeding, otherwise while actually spraying the two sections would always turn ON together if either was supposed to be ON.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/395536724081?var=0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=71...
This style has a pair of terminals for Power/Ground In and a group of 3 terminals associated with each relay. The relay terminals will be indicated as N.C. (Normally Closed), C (Common) and N.O. (Normally Open). Your would use a 12V switched source and connect it to the +12V In terminal and use jumpers to each of the Common terminals of the relays. In other words, 12V is available at 5 places. Ground from the vehicle would be connected to the Ground In terminal of the board., A separate wire would be fed from the N.O. terminal of the first relay to the trigger wire in your Weather Pack Tee for valve #1. This process would be repeated for each relay. Using different colored wires could be helpful.
This would mean that when the vehicle is ON the board would be receiving 12V and Ground, Each relay Common terminal would be at 12V. When a channel button is pushed, the relay will become active and the Common terminal will be connected to the N.O. terminal. This should cause the appropriate valve to open.
Usually these relays can be setup as Momentary or Latched. Some boards even have a third choice. They may be shipped to behave in the manner that you desire. If not the behavior can be changed although this might be confusing at first.
For this situation, I believe you would want the latched arrangement where pushing a button causes the relay to change its status and remain at that state. In other words, push the button to turn a section ON and it will stay ON when you release the button, You would push the button again to cause the valve to close and stay closed. This would allow you to check each section individually or in any combination you desire.
The board may be shipped with the relays set as Momentary. Momentary means it acts like a door bell button. It would open the valve as long as you hold the button IN but would close the valve when you release the button. This could be desirable but I would prefer the push ON, push OFF arrangement.
Some boards with multiple relays have yet another possibility. With this arrangement pushing a button would cause that relay to cycle ON and stay ON but it turns OFF any other relay that was ON. This would be fine for situations where one and only one of the relays needs to be ON at at any time. This could mean that the remote would cause one section to be ON at all times which would not be desirable for this situation.
Changing these behaviors is easy once you get the hang of it. Unfortunately theses boards are often produced in China and the directions are lacking or a very poor excuse of an English translation. Sometimes a PDF is available online which might be helpful.
Bench testing is extremely helpful to convince yourself that the relays are behaving the way you desire. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that you got a bad unit or one that is not suitable for your situation when the problem is a misunderstanding on how to change the behavior.
Should you find yourself in that situation, post back and we should be able to get you through it.
Edited by tedbear 2/17/2025 06:27
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