User's Manual

MAN-00003: Subeca BLINC Module User Manual Rev 4.0 www.subeca.com

Output Current Sense (Pin 6)

This line is used to detect the current output to drive a valve. It can be used to detect when the valve is

actuating and cut power when it is finished.

Battery Sense (pin 7)

This line monitors the battery voltage and sends an alert when there is low battery power.

Solar Sense (Pin 11)

If solar power is used in addition to or in place of a battery or external input, then the SOLAR_SENSE line can

be used to detect the voltage from the solar panel to make informed decisions about update rates and other

variables that can be optimized due to this excess power. The actual solar input voltage should be diode ORd

with any other power sources into the VIN pin.

Valve Drivers (Pins 12, 14, 15, 16, 17) and Boost Enable (Pins 19, 20)

There are 4 valve logic lines that are to be hooked up to an external driver circuit. These are logic lines only

and no valve drivers are located on the module itself. All 4 share the same common signal so special circuitry

is required to use this single common line.

There is another line BOOST_24V that can be used to set the output voltage to the valve drivers. For the

Subeca Link and Subeca Pin, a low signal on this line sets the output voltage to 12V and a high signal sets it to

24V.

There is also a boost circuit enable line (BOOST_ENABLE) which helps reduce power draw by shutting down

the (external) valve driver boost regulator when not driving valves.

The logic of the valve driver lines is designed to work with 4 valves sharing one common line, and only one to

be actuated at any given time. So, in order to make the external circuit design possible while sharing this

common line, an XOR gate can be used to enable only the valve that is intended to be actuated. When not

operational, both input to a valve driver should be the same logic level to avoid enabling the XOR gate, and

therefore it’s valve driver circuit. A high logic level on the particular drive line, combined with a low level on the

common line, will open a particular valve. The opposite, a high logic level on the common line and a low level

on that particular valve drive line will close a valve. The remaining valve logic lines will have to follow the logic

level of the common line in order to keep their particular driver circuits disabled. Once any intended valves are

actuated, the logic of all 4 driver signals and the common line return to 0. For example, if we want to open

valve 3 then the valve 3 logic line will go high and all other valve logic lines (1, 3 and 4) will go low, as well as

the common line. If we want to close valve 4 then valve logic lines (1, 2, and 3) will go high, as well as the

common line and the valve 4 logic line will go low. See example circuits below. These extra gates can be

omitted if only 1 valve driver is used.