Connecting a 24v appliance(solenoid) to Raspberry Pi

Question

I am trying to do an Internet of Things project with the help of a Raspberry Pi. While most of the project is complete, there is one small thing I am stuck at. I need to connect a solenoid valve to the Pi. The valve needs a voltage of 24v-36v to operate. I connected three 9v batteries together in series to operate it. The valve opens when the voltage is applied and closes when it not. I want to control the opening and closing of the valve by the Pi’s GPIO pins. I’m using a NPN 2N3904 transistor for that. The circuit I’m using is exactly the one given in this image. (http://www.davidhunt.ie/water-droplet-photography-with-raspberry-pi/)

However, it’s not working. The circuit works sometimes and doesn’t work other times when I manually pull and put in the GPIO pin. It never works with code. Is the 27v causing problems with the Pi? What can I do? Is there another way to control it apart from NPN transistors?

The code:

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time,os

pin=18

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
GPIO.setup(pin,GPIO.OUT)

while(True):
  GPIO.output(pin,GPIO.HIGH)
  time.sleep(5)
  GPIO.output(pin,GPIO.LOW)
  time.sleep(5)

Answer 1

I would get rid of all this and just use a ULN2001 or ULN2003, whichever you happen to have around. Then you can drive seven solenoids (but watch out for total current!)

A convenient, although not as cheap as ordering from Mouse or DigiKey, source of ULN2003 is the various "stepper motor driver" boards sold on ebay or aliexpress. You also get four convenient LEDs :)