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Outdoor temperature triggered misting system

Former Member

I live in central Texas and my wife an I just purchased a new home and now want to try my hand at building a home automation project.

 

I have two hunting dogs.  During the day while my wife and I are at work, we keep the dogs in an outdoor 6'x10' chain link fenced kennel.  I have fashioned a misting system using PVC run around the top perimeter of the kennel, 10 brass misting heads in the pipe over the kennel connected to a hose run around the perimiter of the yard to the faucet where we have a Y connection.  In the summer we turn it on when we leave for work and turn it off when we return home and let the dogs out of the kennel.  Since some of the summer days start out cooler than I really need to be running the misting system I would like to setup automation for this system.

 

This is how I would like the system to work:

I want to have an occupied logic control to determine whether the system needs to be "armed" based on whether the chain link fence gate is closed.  If it is closed then the rules below apply.  When armed the misting system system should turn on when the ambient temperature in the kennel rises above 95 degrees and turns off if it drops below 95.  This may mean that the system cyles as it is cooled which isn't bad, I just may need to build some logic to take this into account or just move the temperature monitor outside of the kennel that is being cooled by the misting system.

 

From a control standpoint I know I can use simple water sprinkler control switch to turn the misiting system on.  I don't know the best way to implement the gate closed status switch, the thermometer monitoring device or programming/controller standpoint.  I also need to make sure that and set this up for an outdoor wet envirnment that is dependable becuase the life of my dogs depend on this, especially when the tempuratures reach 105+ during the summer.  An alterantive for the water supply controller circuitry could be to add this as a zone on our new house's water sprinkler system for the water supply and then use the custom controller to control this zone from inside the garage.  I may be overcomplicating this but isn't that what home automation is about?

 

I am looking forward to suggestions and recommendations.

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    Scott,
     
    Welcome to element14. This is a great first question.
     
    Overall your system should be easy to implement.
     
    What microcontrollers, if any, are you comfortable programming?
     
    - For the gate detection, I recommend an optical limit switch or a magnetic reed switchmagnetic reed switch.  The optical one is a sealed solution, often used on CNC machinery. The  Reed switch is like the magnetic switches on store doorways. This will  provide a normally closed or normally open detection for your  microcontroller (uC).
     
    - To turn on the sprinkler system, use a relayuse a relay. The uC activates the relay, turns on the sprinkler.
     
    - For sensing the temperature, use a thermocouplethermocouple. Attach this to on the uC's analog inputs. The uC then interprets the signal to determine the temp.
     
    - You can have the uC  check for all the various conditions and act accordingly. (temp, time,  gate condition, etc) The benefits of a uC based control is the  expandability. You can have a control system built into your home, or  have a more advance control system on your PC or smartphone. Depending  on the amount of time and knowledge of the subject, only imagination  will limit you.
     
    Let's  say the uC fails one day, the dogs would then suffer. I recommend  building in some redundancy or backup systems. IE: Add a simple  thermostat control on a relay to operate the sprinkler system. Sort of  like the thermostat control of your house's air system.
     
    Hope this gives you a good place to start.
     
    Cabe

    http://twitter.com/Cabe_e14

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  • 0
    Scott,
     
    Welcome to element14. This is a great first question.
     
    Overall your system should be easy to implement.
     
    What microcontrollers, if any, are you comfortable programming?
     
    - For the gate detection, I recommend an optical limit switch or a magnetic reed switchmagnetic reed switch.  The optical one is a sealed solution, often used on CNC machinery. The  Reed switch is like the magnetic switches on store doorways. This will  provide a normally closed or normally open detection for your  microcontroller (uC).
     
    - To turn on the sprinkler system, use a relayuse a relay. The uC activates the relay, turns on the sprinkler.
     
    - For sensing the temperature, use a thermocouplethermocouple. Attach this to on the uC's analog inputs. The uC then interprets the signal to determine the temp.
     
    - You can have the uC  check for all the various conditions and act accordingly. (temp, time,  gate condition, etc) The benefits of a uC based control is the  expandability. You can have a control system built into your home, or  have a more advance control system on your PC or smartphone. Depending  on the amount of time and knowledge of the subject, only imagination  will limit you.
     
    Let's  say the uC fails one day, the dogs would then suffer. I recommend  building in some redundancy or backup systems. IE: Add a simple  thermostat control on a relay to operate the sprinkler system. Sort of  like the thermostat control of your house's air system.
     
    Hope this gives you a good place to start.
     
    Cabe

    http://twitter.com/Cabe_e14

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