Tom J NowellAfter years of trying my best not to kill #plants, I've decided to let the machines handle it #raspberrypi #automation
This is a combination of a Pimoroni grow hat/pump/sensor, UUGear witty pi 4 mini power management board, and a Pi zero w 2, combined with a Kalanchoe plant
I had hoped to run this on the balcony with #solar after the death of a marguerite, I’ve an Amigo Pro #charging board with 4000mah Lithium #battery and 4 x 3v 200mah solar cells and a 5v regulator
Unfortunately all 4 solar cells when placed in parallel put out ~0.2mA @ 3v, well below the 190mA @ 5v I need, the 10% loss from conversion, or the extra current to charge the battery. Now that winter approaches the British sun won’t be giving much more
The witty pi was meant to help with this by letting me schedule shutdowns to conserve power as well as safely powering down the pi when voltage got low, but now it’s indoors it’ll give me USB-C and a reliable power switch until spring when I get bigger 5v panels
I also looked into wind, I’ve a golden windmill to scare away birds I 3d printed and wondered if that’d be an intermittent power source to trickle charge but the costs ballooned higher than the entire project
Also a big thanks to @scott for the recommendations advice and introducing me to UUGear
And https://www.printables.com/model/163087-stackable-pcb-standoff for the nice standoffs for my Pi hats
Scott ⁂@tomjn so cool to see it up and running!
Pater Practicus@tomjn I did manage to get my #raspberrypi Pico watering monitor to run solely on solar power. Really needs a slightly bigger LiPo battery to store more charge over a particularly gloomy period. Also uses MicroPython deep sleep to conserve as much power as possible. Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/-UjNNdQtsy4?si=eBisvjOhMgyinyEj
How I made a solar-powered Raspberry Pi Pico plant watering monitor
@paterpracticus I can fully power off the pi with the witty board, it’s got a nice scheduling system but the thought of using my spare Pico did look appealing, glad to see yours working :)