gangolfus

Hello - 

I am brand new to the Netduino/Arduino world (haven't even received my Netduino Plus 2 yet!), but I have been looking for an excuse to jump in for awhile now.  I have finally come up with a project to justify a new toy!  I am a professional .NET Software Engineer by day, so the coding should not be a problem for me, and I know the basics of electronics, so there will be some learning curve there.

Background

I live in a high rise building with a small balcony that does not have power or water.  The first few years I lived here, I had a couple of potted flowers that were fairly low maintenance to water with a watering can every few days.  Last year I decided I wanted to try container gardening using the long flower pots that hang off balcony railing.  It quickly became a hassle water everything, making several trips back and forth every few days between the kitchen sink and the balcony with a watering can, so I decided to look into automated drip irrigation.  I found an off the shelf solar powered, bucket fed, drip irrigation system (http://www.amazon.co...duct/B0055FSA5M) that ended up being a hunk of junk.  After a year of fighting with it, I decided to roll my own solution this year.

Current Setup

This solar and bucket powered solution using the following parts is currently working great:

25 Watt 12VDC Monocrystalline Solar Panel (http://www.amazon.co...duct/B00G4KG0SQ)

Charge Controller (http://www.amazon.co...duct/B00AE3UEUE)

12VDC 12AH Lead Acid Battery (http://www.amazon.co...duct/B00BWVVOTW)

12VDC Timer (http://www.amazon.co...duct/B008999RYY)

12VDC Submersible Water Pump (http://www.amazon.co...duct/B009X6ADCM)

5 Gallon Bucket + Lid (standard available anywhere type)

Also, I have affixed lighting to the bottom of the balcony railing, also powered by the battery above

12VDC Waterproof RGB Led Strip (http://www.amazon.co...duct/B00CTMPINQ)

Future Netduino Plus 2

I would like to integrate a Netduino Plus 2 with a Wifi ethernet bridge into this setup.  I have a few ideas:

Led Lighting Control

Bucket Water Level Monitoring

Battery Level Monitoring

Replace timer with Netduino

All of the above would be viewed/controlled by an ASP web app hosted on a Synology Diskstation running Mono.

Conclusion

That is all for now, I will update this post as the project progresses.  My N+2 is supposed to arrive this weekend so I will probably start by spending a few days getting familiar with it and the .NETMF and pinging it from Diskstation.

Thanks for reading!

Sparkfun has the Netduino Plus 2 on sale for $50 (+shipping) and has a coupon code RETROSPARK for $10 off $40.  Sale runs until 11:59 p.m. MT on 8/17/14.

https://www.sparkfun.../products/11608

Get one while they're cheap!

Edit:

Here's a full list of what they have on sale right now: https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1564

Also, the RETROSPARK code is good for $10 off any order of $40 or more, it is not NP2 specific.

I would like to do this project (https://learn.adafru.../rgb-led-strips) using a Netduino Plus 2 and was wondering about power.  My power supply would be a 12VDC 12AH lead acid (scooter/lawnmower) battery.  If I want to power up to 4A worth of 12V led lights, would it be ok to use the barrel connector and the Vin/Gnd pins on the Netduino, or should I use an external transformer to covert to USB, then use that to power the Netduino and connect the LED strip directly to the battery?  I searched the forums as best I could to find this answer, but couldn't determine if max power draw included the Vin/Gnd pass through, or only what was being passed through the control pins.

I am new to the Netduino and any help is greatly appreciated!