I want to use a Raspberry Pi or such to drive a latching solenoid valve (e.g. Orbit 58874N). The original controller applies something like 4.5 A 10 ms pulse to it (it actually is a saw tooth with a 4.5 A peak and 15 ms linear drop). The DC resistance is 4.2 Ohm.
A DRV8833 or similar would be nice, but I am afraid the peak current will not suffice. The original controller uses 2 AA batteries and a large capacitor (2200 uF). Can you recommend a solution?
I can imagine that there is general demand by sprinkler control enthusiasts.
You could try our BD65496MUV motor driver carrier which can handle a 5 A peak current for a few milliseconds, but I think a motor driver might be overkill for you application since you do not need the bidirectional control. A simple low-side MOSFET might be sufficient.
If you decide to try out our driver or even just get something working with a simple MOSFET, we’d definitely be interested to hear more about it!
I measured current and voltage during valve action either original controller and the voltage peak is app. 22 V. The BD65496MUV motor driver allows up to 16 V
Our TB9051 carrier might be a safer option if you really need to handle 22 V spikes. You might also try adding some large capacitors to see if that can help reduce the voltage spikes.
