Where to buy and how to control proportional electric valves

[canmorebrewguy]

Hello All,
I am looking for a source to buy my electric valves for a BCS build. Does anyone have a good supplier of valves that would include proportional? I have read some members are using valves 4 projects, but I did nor see any proportional valves on there eBay store.

On a second note how would one get the BCS to control the valves? I know that Brundog was using a Arduino to control his but I am not sure on how to do this. Does anyone have any info or schematics to do this?

Thanks for all the info in advance.
CBG

 

[BrunDog]

I use KLD valves, got them direct from China. Ebay, Amazon, etc. also have some nice proportional valves. It just depends on what you are trying to do. On my rig, the only valve I wanted varied electronic control over was the sparge-feeding valve, so I just used one. You should provide more detail of what you are trying to do and maybe we can help you better.

The BCS has no analog control out. I used an Arduino to control the valve because it has a (simulated) analog out via PWM and an RC low-pass filter. The BCS tells the Arduino what do do based upon two outputs - this controls four modes: open, closed, sparge, recirculate. I wrote the code in the Arduino to then handle the valve opening percentage based upon the mode (and reading the flowmeter for the sparge mode).