TBHS project / build idea

I want to make a moisture sensor system for my potted succulents so I know when they need to be watered. Does that count?

I want to make a moisture sensor system for my potted succulents so I know when they need to be watered. Does that count?

That is a great idea for one of the sensors that could be relatively easy to build in The Learning Circuits show as I mentioned above.

In addition to that, there could be a small water pump to water the plants, or some signaling system for start.

I think there could be quite a lot of various sensors with various build and/or processing difficulty. For complex ideas, it might be interesting to see graphs of the relation of humidity of the soil compared to temperature and humidity of the environment - to measure the water consumption.

Sounds like a potential revisit of episode 256 

Episode 256: Ben Heck’s TI Launchpad Plant Booster Episode

(I used to have a load of cacti but they got a bit dangerous after about ten years when they started reaching the ceiling. One exploded under its own weight and another would actively attempt to seek out moisture from neighbouring plant pots and tip itself over in the process. Some bizarre flowers off of some of them however.)

Have you been following urkraft 's (Semi)Automated Plant Watering System ?

(Semi)Automated Plant Irrigation System

https://www.element14.com/community/message/229668/l/re-automatic-irrigation-system-using-pic-microcontroller#229668

I saw a similar project for the Intel Galileo where they made a little emoticon out of LEDs which smiled or frowned depending upon the state of the moisture sensor reading. Perhaps one for a little OLED /ePaper display creativity.

No, but now I am.

makerkaren - spotted this build on hackster.io which may be of interest as a starting point. self-contained self watering plant pot complete with succulent - 'just add water'.

https://www.hackster.io/jonathanrjpereira/sprout-modern-indoor-self-watering-planter-3eefaf

There are quite a few other self-watering systems there on hackster.io which may be worth a look at whilst designing you own ACME 'drought-be-gone' plant pot.

Given that the pump only needs to run infrequently you could perhaps use solar to trickle charge a battery and use the picopower modes of an Atmel processor to reduce power consumption.

Sounds like you could build a good STEM project out of this as there are quite a few ways you could adapt it and make it educational on a number of levels.

I saw that! That's what got me thinking that I could build a system to monitor/water my succulents.

Thanks for the advice.

You could perhaps enhance it by using more probes distributed around the pot at different levels to see how well the moisture is being distributed through the soil given that there will likely be some spare analogue inputs. Functional as well as educational - nothing worse than having the water run straight through overly dry soil, straight out of the bottom of the pot, overflowing the saucer, onto the window sill, down the wall and onto the carpet (or books in your bookcase...).

I would likely put the sensor right at the base of the plant so it takes fairly accurate measurement of how much moisture the roots are getting. But I have quite a few pots, so I would need to work out integrating multiple sensors into one system rather than having to make multiple complete systems.

Hello makerkaren,

For what you have in mind, I may recommend to touch base with one of my past projects a Plant Watering System, it uses a very reliable moisture sensor (Vegetronix VH400), this sensor will not corrode over time as other sensors do, it is a little pricey but I think is worth every penny. As you need more than one moisture sensor, this may be a good opportunity to show in your project how to build a sensor with this same technology on the cheap.

Regards,

Luis

Yikes. $40ea is more than I'd care to spend for a convenience product. Maybe there is a cheaper solution waiting to be found. Adding that to my ever-growing project list.

Some of the succulents I had had pretty shallow but wide root systems - I guess it stems from desert  conditions where they had to capture very light rainfall from near the surface before it evaporated again.

I guess it depends a lot on the distribution of the pots. The cost of the microcontroller will probably not be the most expensive item on the bill of materials for this, especially if it is the likes of an ATtiny.