Tricking a valve in being on all the time?

[UKMyers]

I have a motion activated sprinkler to keep my irresponsible neighbors cats out of my garden. It requires a constant supply of water. I had a capped PVC line next to my garden and I finally got it all hooked up to a valve so I don't have to have my hose laying out across the yard all the time to feed the sprinkler. I have an Ortho 9 zone controller and it has no settings for keeping one on all the time. If I crack the manual bleeder it will work but then it sprays a small mist of water all the time. If I crack the manual and then tighten it back down it will work for a while but eventually the pressure bleeds off and the valve closes again. I don't want to send power to the solenoid all the time because surely eventually it would fail.

So does anybody know a way I can mechanically force the valve to stay open all the time? They are standard Lawn Genie 3/4 anti syphon valves.

Thanks

[Gary Swart]

You were on the right track with the hose, but I certainly understand you don't want a hose laying across the lawn all of the time. What I would suggest is tie into a water line that is not valve controlled possible the one the hose was connected to. Bury a PVC pipe under the lawn. One problem with connecting to a sprinkler zone line is that those lines are not charged with water until the zone valve opens. There would be a time lag while the air in that line was expelled and the cat sprinkler activated. A dedicated line would be fully pressurized at all times so the cat sprinkler would active instantly.

[hj]

Unscrew the solenoid and remove the moving stem inside it.

[UKMyers]

The moving stem inside of the solenoid itself? I have had my solenoids off quite a few times and I'm not sure what you are referring to.

EDIT I went and grabbed an old solenoid and messed around with it and figured out what you were talking about. I pulled the guts out of it and it works like a champ. Thanks for the help!!

[Joerg]

He means the plunger/spring assembly. When you unscrew the solenoid it'll almost fall into your hands. A piece of metal about 1/2" long and often hexagon shaped, with a spring clicked into a groove. Watch out that it doesn't fall into the grass, hard to find in there.

Look at the 2nd picture:

http://www.irrigationtutorials.com/faq/repair-valve.htm

Regards, Joerg