Automated plant watering system
In 2016 I started building an automated watering system to water my plants.
First prototype, 2016
The first version has three pumps which were driven by a relay and the moisture level of the plants is measured by a simple soil resistance sensor connected to a 8 bit analog to digital converter. The frame holding everything together is made out of Lego. Every plant has its own pump and flow-sensor (YF-S402) which makes it possible to pump precise amounts of water. The relays and sensors are controlled by an Arduino UNO which is controlled by a Raspberry PI over USB. The Raspberry PI runs a Telegram bot which allows me to run the pumps remotely and obtain plots which show the moisture level of the plants over time.
Additions 2018
The following changes were made:- Control panel
- 15bit analog to digital converters instead of 8bit (ADS1115)
- 8 pumps and flow-sensors
- Arduino mega
- 2x ESP8266 to measure soil moisture and send it over WiFi to reduce the amount of cables
- Capacitive soil moisture measurement instead of resistive.
- Three color E-ink display to show current moisture levels and last moment of watering
