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!