Tricking a valve in being on all the time?

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

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.

valve

Unscrew the solenoid and remove the moving stem inside it.

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!!

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