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  • Author Author: ge0rgej
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1 - Introduction

ge0rgej

Hi

 

 
Having been hooked on the Raspberry Pi for my home media system for some time now, and having an unhealthy obsession with Home Automation, I decided to investigate how the Raspberry Pi could be useful in my current Home Automation setup.

 

 
When I came across the PiFace addon for the Raspberry Pi it became clear that the possibilities of using the Raspberry Pi and PiFace together are almost endless. Couple this together with the fact that I am an Electrical Design Engineer (by day) and a programming dabbler (by night) its not hard to see how this project was almost inevitable. There are very few things around our home that are not automated, but Garden Irrigation is one of them,  …....  and so the Garden Irrigation Project was conceived.

 

 
The purpose of this project is to use rainwater harvesting to fill two water tanks, used in conjunction with a mains water solenoid valve to fill the tanks if no rain water is available. The fill state of the tanks will be detected and controlled by the Raspberry Pi and Piface .... and under the right conditions a water pump will be activated to start watering the garden. System status will be reported back via Twitter alerts, with the irrigation system ultimately being activated by an iPhone app or Cloud Scheduling.

 

 
The following Blogs in this project will detail;
 
 
  • ·     Section 2 - Equipment needed to create this project
  • ·     Section 3a - Setting Up The Raspberry Pi
  •       Section 3b - Setting Up PiFace Digital
  • ·     Section 4 - Exploring PiFace Digital
  •       Section 5 - PiFace Digital Inputs & PiFace Emulator
  •       Section 6 - Monitoring The Float Switches With Python
  • ·     Section 7a - Preparing For Twitter
  • ·     Section 7b - Setting Up SuperTweet
  •       Section 7c - Irrigation Alerts With Python
  •       PiFace Outputs
  • ·      How to activate the Garden Irrigation system via an iPhone app & Cloud Scheduling
  •       Schematic & Connections
  •       Constructing The Project

 

You are more than welcome to comment, correct me on my mistakes and add your input as this project progresses.
I will try my best to update this Blog on a weekly basis.

PLEASE NOTE : This guide is designed for total newcomers to both the Raspberry Pi and Linux and whilst some of the programming blogs featured later on in this project will hopefully be useful to more advanced users please be mindful when the 'obvious' questions start being posted ..... We all started at the beginning at some point in time.
 
Disclaimer
WARNING - No Adults, Children or Puppies were harmed during the creation of this project. However, whilst the
majority of circuits and voltages being used in this project are either No Volt or ELV - mains voltages are still present.
Should you be unaware of the electricity regulations for your local jurisdiction, and the connection of mains
voltages, please either consult a qualified electrician and / or have a qualified electrician carry out these works for you.
I am unable to accept any responsibility for ( i )  electric shock / death, ( ii ) drowning,  ( iii ) flooding .... or your partner
divorcing you due to the amount of time and money you are about to spend on this project.

 

Parents Comment
  • in reply to ge0rgej

    Thanks so much.

     

    I have some ideas around collecting rain water in barrels and then using a pump and hose to later perform irrigation.  I was thinking of using some microcontroller technology to intelligently determine the best time to use the water, detect how much water is left in the barrel, etc.  Looking at your parts list, I thought it might be close to what you are doing. 

Children
  • in reply to bithead942

    bit head

     

    You are right this is exactly what I am putting together. I have shown the need for 4 floats but only 2 off them are used for activation .... all four however are used to provide status on how full / empty the tanks are

     

    Determining the best time to use the water is done via a basic rain sensor, but once I have this up and running I can look at something a bit more reliable like weather stations etc

     

    keep watching - hopefully the project will be of use to you

     

    George

  • in reply to ge0rgej

    George,

        At first, I considered a weather station as well, but later discovered there were Internet sites that provided RSS feeds with the information I needed.  I developed a basic XSLT file to filter the XML stream to give me only the data values I needed and then wrote some code to read in the values and take action.  I've not tried it on the Pi, but it seems doable.  Thoughts?

  • in reply to bithead942

    bit head

     

    I also considered an RSS feed, I believe this can be done via weather.com but thought this would probably be a bit too advanced for my programming capabilities. Definately interested in implementing this along the way though

     

    George