McPherson Up Flush toilet repair

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Ladiesman217

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I have an old McPherson upflush toilet. The rubber in the flush valve has failed. McPherson is out of business with no spare parts available for repair from any source.

I made up an electronically controlled fill and flush valve assembly to make the McPherson upflush toilet operational again. At this point in time I have assembled and installed the valve assembly. No water leaks. I tested the fill valve and the flush valve with a battery and everything works as designed.

I have a few things left to do with the activation switch and valve timers.
 

Ladiesman217

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A few pictures.


McPherson_Toilet_Valve-2_WIN_20180604_17_34_09_Pro.jpg




McPherson_Valve_Assembly-1_WIN_20180604_17_30_19_Pro.jpg
 
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Ladiesman217

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I got the basic idea from here:

https://www.bobvila.com/posts/57775-mcpherson-flush-up-toilets?page=1

Playing around with the water valves, it looks like the fill valve must operate simultaneously with the evacuate valve. The evacuate valve requires about a five second delay before it turns on relative to the fill valve.

The old mechanical valve used to operate for a minute or so before it turned off. I estimate that about 20 seconds is enough time to flush the toilet till clear. I intend to use the minimum amount of water per flush that is required.

The electronic timers are adjustable. I will set the correct water valve times after I finalize my wiring and timer installation. I still have to pick up a few more parts to complete this install.
 
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Ladiesman217

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I finished assembling the prototype water valve control box assembly. The design and assembly of the control box took way more time than I expected, but I did get it done. Having special parts shipped from China also slowed things down.

After connecting the two water valves to the control box, I had a bit of trouble with the fill valve working properly. The fill water was slow and weak during the fill and evacuate operations.

The short repair story is it turned out that there were rubber valve remnants from the old water valve that were clogging the fill water connection at the toilet. The internal opening inside the fill connection measures only about 1/8" and was easily clogged by the old rubber remnants. I removed the rubber fill hose at the toilet base and cleaned out the rubber remnants.

The toilet works like a champ now. It works better than when it was new.

The fill only cycle operates for about 5 seconds. The toilet bowl is cleaned during this part of the cycle.

The "grind" / evacuate cycle starts about 5 seconds after the fill start cycle starts. Both the fill and evacuate valves are fully open at the same time from 5 seconds to the 20 second valve close time.

I still have to fine tune the two timers to minimize water use per flush. The toilet is not used for solids, so if toilet flushes toilet paper and liquids properly and then leaves clear bowl water the timer settings will be good enough.

Solids may require a few flush cycles.
 
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Ladiesman217

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The valve controller prototype is finished and working.

The fill valve is set to open two seconds before the evacuate / jet flush valve. After that initial time delay, both valves are fully open until the total operation time has been reached.

The total operation time is set for about 23 seconds.

The pushbutton is illuminated with an led.


McPherson_Valve_Controller-1_WIN_20180612_08_02_20_Pro.jpg
 

Reach4

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How about a picture of the toilet -- the objective of the project.
 
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