olli.dev ✔️Ich habe alles andere als einen grünen Daumen, so dass mein Smart Home mich Dank neuer Sensoren nun dabei unterstützt meine Pflanzen länger am leben zu lassen 😂
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Don T3rr0r 
Montamos un sensor de tierra desde cero con ESP32
Montamos un sensor de tierra desde cero con ESP32
hackaday unofficialSoil Moisture Sensor Coating Lessons Learned The Hard Way
Ever wanted to measure soil moisture? Common "soil moisture meter module arduino raspberry compatible free shipping" PCBs might deceive you with their ascetic looks. Today, [Raphael (@rbaron_)] is here to teach us (Twitter, unrolled) what it takes to build a soil-embedded sensor that can actually survive contact with a plant.
As the picture might hint, waterproofing is of paramount importance, and soldermask doesn't quite cut it. Raphael describes his journey of figuring out approaches and coatings that would last, starting from simply using nail polish, and ending with the current option - a rotisserie-like device that rotates sensors as the coating applied to them dries, mitigating a certain kind of structural failure observed long-term. With plenty of illustrative pictures and even a video of the rotisserie device in action, you'll quickly learn things that took time and effort for Raphael to figure out.
This isn't the first time Raphael shares some design battlefield stories and lessons with us - he has taught us about overall capacitive moisture sensor principles, too! If that interests you, we've covered quite a few moisture sensor designs, from cheap but hardy two-nails designs to flip-dot-equipped ones, and some of us take the commercial designs and upgrade them!
We thank [Chaos] for sharing this with us!
When I started working on my soil moisture sensor, I had little idea about how harsh an environment the soil really is. In this , cool failure modes & solutions when sticking electronics in the ground: pic.twitter.com/ROGvLSPgk9
-- Raphael (@rbaron_) February 9, 2022
#greenhacks #automatedplantcare #capacitivesensor #gardening #moisturesensor #plantcare #plants #soilmoisturesensor #soilsensor #water
Soil Sensor Shows Flip-Dots Aren’t Just for Signs
Soil sensors are handy things, but while sensing moisture is what they do , how they handle that data is what makes them useful. Ensuring usefulness is what led [Maakbaas] to design and create an ESP32-based soil moisture sensor with wireless connectivity, deep sleep, data logging, and the ability to indicate that the host plant needs watering both visually, and with a push notification to a mobile phone.
A small flip-dot indicator makes a nifty one-dot display that requires no power when idle.
The visual notification part is pretty nifty, because [Maakbaas] uses a small flip-dot indicator made by Alfa-Zeta. This electromechanical indicator works by using two small coils to flip a colored disk between red or green. It uses no power when idle, which is a useful feature for a device that spends most of its time in a power-saving deep sleep. When all is well the indicator is green, but when the plant needs water, the indicator flips to red.
The sensor itself wakes itself up once per hour to take a sensor measurement, which it then stores in a local buffer for uploading to a database every 24 measurements. This reduces the number of times the device needs to power up and connect via WiFi, but if the sensor ever determines that the plant requires water, that gets handled immediately.
The sensor looks great, and a 3D-printed enclosure helps keep it clean while giving the device a bit of personality. Interested in rolling your own sensor? The project also has a page on Hackaday.io and we've previously covered in-depth details about how these devices work. Whether you are designing your own solution or using existing hardware, just remember to stay away from cheap probes that aren't worth their weight in potting soil.
#greenhacks #esp32 #flipdot #moisturesensor #plantcare #soilsensor
Soil Moisture Sensors, How Do They Work?
In a way, the magic of a soil moisture sensor's functionality boils down to a simple RC circuit. But of course, in practice there is a bit more to it than that. [rbaron] explains exactly how capacitive soil moisture sensors work simply, clearly, and concisely. He also shows, with a short video, exactly how their output changes in response to their environment, and explains how it informed his own sensor design.
At its heart, a moisture sensor measures how quickly (or slowly) a capacitor charges through a resistor, but in these sensors the capacitor is not a literal component, but is formed by two PCB traces that are near one another. Their capacitance -- and therefore their charging rate -- changes in response to how much water is around them. By measuring this effect on a probe sunk into dirt, the sensor can therefore indirectly measure the amount of water in the soil.
This ties into his own work on b-parasite: an open-source, all-in-one wireless soil moisture sensor (which was also a runner-up in our Earth Day contest) that broadcasts over BLE and even includes temperature readings. One thing to be mindful of if you are making your own PCBs or ordering them from a fab house is that passing current through metal in a moist environment is a recipe for oxidation, so it's important not to expose bare traces to wet soil. A good coated PCB should avoid this problem, but one alternative we have seen proposed is to use graphite rods in place of metal.
#greenhacks #capacitivesensor #gardening #moisturesensor #plants #soilsensor #water
Soil Moisture Sensors, How Do They Work?
In a way, the magic of a soil moisture sensor's functionality boils down to a simple RC circuit. But of course, in practice there is a bit more to it than that. [rbaron] explains exactly how capacitive soil moisture sensors work simply, clearly, and concisely. He also shows, with a short video, exactly how their output changes in response to their environment, and explains how it informed his own sensor design.
At its heart, a moisture sensor measures how quickly (or slowly) a capacitor charges through a resistor, but in these sensors the capacitor is not a literal component, but is formed by two PCB traces that are near one another. Their capacitance -- and therefore their charging rate -- changes in response to how much water is around them. By measuring this effect on a probe sunk into dirt, the sensor can therefore indirectly measure the amount of water in the soil.
This ties into his own work on b-parasite: an open-source, all-in-one wireless soil moisture sensor (which was also a runner-up in our Earth Day contest) that broadcasts over BLE and even includes temperature readings. One thing to be mindful of if you are making your own PCBs or ordering them from a fab house is that passing current through metal in a moist environment is a recipe for oxidation, so it's important not to expose bare traces to wet soil. A good coated PCB should avoid this problem, but one alternative we have seen proposed is to use graphite rods in place of metal.
#greenhacks #capacitivesensor #gardening #moisturesensor #plants #soilsensor #water
Solar Stevenson Screen for Smart Sprinkler
It's not infrequent that we see the combination of moisture sensors and water pumps to automate plant maintenance. Each one has a unique take on the idea, though, and solves problems in ways that could be useful for other applications as well. [Emiliano Valencia] approached the project with a few notable technologies worth gleaning, and did a nice writeup of his "Autonomous Solar Powered Irrigation Monitoring Station" (named Steve Waters as less of a mouthful).
Of particular interest was [Emiliano]'s solution for 3D printing a threaded rod; lay it flat and shave off the top and bottom. You didn't need the whole thread anyway, did you? Despite the relatively limited number of GPIO pins on the ESP8266, the station has three analog sensors via an ADS1115 ADC to I2C, a BME280 for temperature, pressure, and humidity (also on the I2C bus), and two MOSFETs for controlling valves. For power, a solar cell on top of the enclosure charges an 18650 cell. Communication over wireless goes to Thingspeak, where a nice dashboard displays everything you could want. The whole idea of the Stevenson Screen is clever as well, and while this one is 3D printed, it seems any kind of stacking container could be modified to serve the same purpose and achieve any size by stacking more units. We're skeptical about bugs getting in the electronics, though.
We recently saw an ESP32-based capacitive moisture sensor on a single PCB sending via MQTT, and we've seen [Emiliano] produce other high quality content etching PCBs with a vinyl cutter.
#greenhacks #hardware #automatedplantcare #capacitivesensor #esp8266 #homeautomation #moisturesensor #soilmoisturesensor #soilsensor
