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choosing the right solenoid valve
Hello, I am looking for a pneumatic solenoid valve that can be used to control the motion of a piston in a double-acting cylinder. The descent of the piston drives the esxtrusion of a viscous material contained in the lower section of the cylinder through a small orifice. After doing some research I had come to the conlcusion that the type that's best suited for the purpose should be a 5/3 valve with operating pressure between 0 and ≥4 bar, but when I went looking for one I could only find valves with a minimum pressure of 1.5 bar, which I can't use since the pressure needed to achieve extrusion at the desired rate is generally ≤1 bar. I turned to looking for 3/2 direct-acting valves thinking I could use two and obtain the same result as with a 5/3, but even if it worked it would still be preferable to have one component instead of two.
What I came here to ask is:
1) do all 5/3 solenoid valves have a minimum differential pressure? If so, why? Are they all pilot-operated? Our system is currently equipped with a 5/2 manually actuated valve (it's described as 5/2 on the datasheet, but I think it works more like a 5/3 open center valve because if its lever is moved to an intermediate position the piston stops where it is*) which has a max pressure but no minimum pressure
2) would the 2x3/2 valves workaround actually work?
3) * if our manually actuated valve has three positions, why does the datasheet say 5/2? (diagram below)
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Thank you :)
p.s. I am very new to the field, please forgive me for any conceptual or terminological mistakes