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I've finally come to a reasonably advanced stage on a project I've been wanting to do for a while: An automated urban garden. I've always liked the idea of houseplants, but never had the skill or the attention to detail to keep said plants alive. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to outsource the care of the plants to a Netduino.
Behold!
At this point, the garden will automatically water plants, optionally using a soil moisture sensor. The reservoir that holds the water will alert you when it needs refilling. It also shines a grow lamp on the plants in a way that simulates the change in sunlight over the year. The whole thing can be controlled via Bluetooth and an Android application.
You may want to think about insulating the bottom of the relay board, maybe some large heatshrink over the entire thing? Shorting anything onto the bottom of the relay board will likely result in the magic smoke escaping.
You may want to think about insulating the bottom of the relay board, maybe some large heatshrink over the entire thing? Shorting anything onto the bottom of the relay board will likely result in the magic smoke escaping.
That's a good point, though fortunately the plastic box is non-conducting. Still, some electrical tape certainly couldn't hurt! Also, that relay shield looks great! Maybe I can use that if I ever get to a version 2.0.
do you know your method so much help full for Tea Plantation. when the atmospheric temperature goes below 10-14C it will freeze the leaf. in Indonesia, when it's happen the plantation lost about 60% of normal harvest.
the solution is, whenever the temperature goes below 15C(in example; need more observation), you just need to control water sprinkle above the leaf (smaller holes the better, we want the water vapor keep longer in the air.). as we know, that the water has a higher heat capacity than the air. so you can control the air temperature.
do you know your method so much help full for Tea Plantation. when the atmospheric temperature goes below 10-14C it will freeze the leaf. in Indonesia, when it's happen the plantation lost about 60% of normal harvest.
the solution is, whenever the temperature goes below 15C(in example; need more observation), you just need to control water sprinkle above the leaf (smaller holes the better, we want the water vapor keep longer in the air.). as we know, that the water has a higher heat capacity than the air. so you can control the air temperature.
That's a very interesting application! It wouldn't be hard to integrate a termperature sensor. I'd love to hear about it if something like that is ever implemented!
Just a quick update. I'm pleased to say that my plants are growing well, and things are already looking like a proper garden (see the attached images for three and five days after planting).
I've also added a second lamp to the garden, and updated the code a bit for reliability. I've updated the Google doc in the first post will all the gruesome details, as well as the code in that post.
That is a great project! I've been working on a similar project, so far I'm just monitoring the moisture level of the plant, but I got the pump this week and hope to get it hooked up soon :-).
That is a great project! I've been working on a similar project, so far I'm just monitoring the moisture level of the plant, but I got the pump this week and hope to get it hooked up soon :-).
That sounds like a fun project, you'll have to let us know how it goes. Also, I'd be interested in knowing how well your moisture sensor is working, I'm having some doubts about mine; either my soil retains moisture really well or my plants don't drink a lot since the level never seems to change, or the sensor could be rater unreliable, of course.
That sounds like an excellent project. I'm from NY as well and want to get started on a similar project since sunlight is a problem in my apartment like most others. I want to start off with just being able to provide ample light for the houseplants. I am very comfortable writing all the code but am not much of a hardware person so wasn't sure of the relays etc that I might need for the project.
It's good to meet another NYC urban gardener! Providing light to your plants is definitely a good place to start, though I'd be interested to hear about where you end up taking your project. I have a complete parts list in the GoogleDoc I linked to in the first post which should give you an idea about hardware, but if you have any questions just let me know.
It would require a Bluetooth LE module and probably hacking their protocol. The flower power is a bit expensive but there's also the SensorTag from Texas which is not miles away (not a coinsidence): http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2541dk-sensor
I got one, works perfecly with iOS devices but haven't got around getting a board for my Netduinos yet and turned out there's no BT LE drivers for my good old XP box (while as it is built into Win 7).
Most moisture sensors measure a mix of the substrate's other properties along with its humidity (e.g., amount of salt in the substrate), like the typical cheap electrical resistance sensors with two electrodes. A good sensor measures how much water could be sucked up by a plant in a certain amount of time, no matter what kind of substrate it is in.
I haven't too much confidence in the Parrot sensor yet, but their iPhone app is quite beautiful :-)
Sorry for the long delay, but I wanted to share an update about the garden's beta run. Things worked very well, and even got a little out of hand as you can see by the last photo:
I've since removed the flowers as they began to wither, and I'm now considering my next round of planting. Overall, I'm quite pleased with how it worked!
Wow that looks great! What type of moisture sensor are you using? How's it been working?
My PlantNanny (http://www.lymantech...nanny-part-one/) started giving me noise for the moisture level last week. I pulled out the moisture sensor (a two prong fork like thing) and when I cleaned it off I found that the metal plating (probably copper) was completely corroded away.
Instead of buying a new one I took two pieces of #12 gauge copper electrical wire, secured them to the fork by wrapping some hookup wire around them, and soldered them to the sensor at the top of the fork. It seems to be working, I guess we'll see how it goes.
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Garden.zip 13.6KB
46 downloads
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