Published August 26, 2016 © GPL3+

Plant Moisture Monitoring and Watering with LED Indicator

Monitor your plants and let them water themselves when they are thirsty.

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Plant Moisture Monitoring and Watering with LED Indicator

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Arduino MKR1000

Analog Moisture Sensor

Resistor 330 ohm

RGB Diffused Common Cathode

watering pump

fish tank tubing

10 ft. for water transfer

2 gallon bucket

2 gallon bucket from Ace Hareward

Jumper wires (generic)

Perma-Proto Breadboard Half Size

16 MHz Crystal

Capacitor 22 pF

5v relay shield

Dual Row 4 Position Covered Screw Terminal Strip

you could certainly use a less rated Amp one, i had one from previous project.

28 Pin DIP IC Sockets Adaptor Solder Type Socket

ELECFREAKS solid hookup wire

9V 1A Switching Wall Power Supply

5v 2A power supply

old phone charger (samsung)

3 mm LED: Red

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Hand Drill

3/16'' drill bit

Soldering iron (generic)

Story

Motivation

I work in a rather 'sterile' office, that was once a server room with raised floors. After several years working in there, I got tired of no windows, no outside light, and NO GREEN things, and decided to bring in one of my many plants, from home, in an attempt to bring a little 'green' inside.

I brought the plant in and it's done very well, advancing across my top shelf and apparently pleasingly invading my two adjoining office mates top shelves. They both seem to like it, so I haven't had to bother training it, or moving it.

Working in databases for a living, I sometimes get distracted and forget when I last watered the office plant. I mean it doesn't have a scheduler built in -- how primitive.

I don't have this problem at home as I have a pattern of behavior that deals with plant watering. At the office however, my beautiful plant will over time become a stringy nasty looking thing. Unappealing.

The Build

Enter the solution. I have an Arduino chip laying around that I'm not currently using, and some parts that I've been accumulating over the last 6 months, so I whipped up a quick program to read a moisture sensor and then based on the results lights up a Green or Red color indicator on a RGB LED.

Red is "Water Now", and turns the pump on for 10 seconds, then waits a short time to do another reading. Green is "Nice work, Everything is EXCELLENT".

I liked how well it worked, so I expanded it to handle a second plant as well. With the addition of the second plant, I have tendrils in all my office mates cubes -- much to their pleasure, surprisingly. I figured someone would complain.

So far they seem to be doing very well, though I shut them off for the weekend, at work, just out of paranoia. Testing at home showed no issues.

It is a rather easy setup, and if anyone is really interested I could do a further write up.

Code

// Define LED's
const int sensor1redPin = 2;  // R petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 2
const int sensor1greenPin = 3;  // G petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 3
const int sensor1bluePin = 4;  // B petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 4
const int sensor2redPin = 7;  // R petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 5
const int sensor2greenPin = 6;  // G petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 6
const int sensor2bluePin = 5;  // B petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 7

// Define Motors
int motor1 = 9;
int motor2 = 10;

// declare sensors
int sensorValue1;
int sensorValue2;

// declare rates and delay.
int serialRate = 9600;
int loopDelay = 5000;

void setup() {
// set LED's
  pinMode(sensor1redPin, OUTPUT); // sets the redPin to be an output
  pinMode(sensor1greenPin, OUTPUT); // sets the greenPin to be an output
  pinMode(sensor1bluePin, OUTPUT); // sets the bluePin to be an output
  pinMode(sensor2redPin, OUTPUT); // sets the redPin to be an output
  pinMode(sensor2greenPin, OUTPUT); // sets the greenPin to be an output
  pinMode(sensor2bluePin, OUTPUT); // sets the bluePin to be an output
  
  pinMode(motor1, OUTPUT); // motor1
  pinMode(motor2, OUTPUT); // motor2
  
  Serial.begin(serialRate);  // initialize serial communication at 9600 bits per second:
}

void loop() {
// read the input on analog pin 0:
sensorValue1 = analogRead(A0); 
sensorValue2 = analogRead(A1);
Serial.print ("Sensor 1: ");
Serial.print(sensorValue1);
Serial.print("  Sensor 2: ");
Serial.println(sensorValue2);
if (sensorValue1 >= 400){
  // RED LIGHT SOLID
  Serial.println("Sensor 1 - Red");
  setLED1Color(255, 0, 0);
  digitalWrite(motor1, HIGH); // turn on Watering Motor
  delay(10000); // leave pump on for 5 seconds
  digitalWrite(motor1, LOW); // turn off motor.
}
if (sensorValue1 < 400){
  // GREEN LIGHT SOLID
  Serial.println("Sensor 1 - Green");
  setLED1Color(0,200, 0);
  // no motor activation
}
if (sensorValue2 >= 400){
  // RED LIGHT SOLID
  Serial.println("Sensor 2 - Red");
  setLED2Color(255, 0, 0);
  digitalWrite(motor2, HIGH); // turn on Watering Motor
  delay(10000); // leave pump on for 5 seconds
  digitalWrite(motor2, LOW); // turn off motor.
}
if (sensorValue2 < 400){
  // GREEN LIGHT SOLID
  Serial.println("Sensor 2 - Green");
  setLED2Color(0,200, 0);
  // no motor activation
}
delay(loopDelay);
}

void setLED1Color (unsigned char red, unsigned char green, unsigned char blue)     // the color generating function 
{   
  //Serial.println("LED1");
  analogWrite(sensor1redPin, red);  
  analogWrite(sensor1bluePin, blue);
  analogWrite(sensor1greenPin, green);
}
void setLED2Color (unsigned char red, unsigned char green, unsigned char blue)     // the color generating function 
{   
  //Serial.println("LED2");
  analogWrite(sensor2redPin, red);  
  analogWrite(sensor2bluePin, blue);
  analogWrite(sensor2greenPin, green);
}

// Basic colors: 
//color(255, 0, 0); // turn the RGB LED red
/*color(0,255, 255); // turn the RGB LED green 
color(0, 0, 255); // turn the RGB LED blue 
color(255,0,0); // turn the RGB LED red 
color(237,109,0); // turn the RGB LED orange 
color(255,215,0); // turn the RGB LED yellow 
color(34,139,34); // turn the RGB LED green 
color(0,0,255); // turn the RGB LED blue 
color(0,46,90); // turn the RGB LED  indigo
color(128,0,128); // turn the RGB LED purple 
*/

// Define LED's
const int sensor1redPin = 2;  // R petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 2
const int sensor1greenPin = 3;  // G petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 3
const int sensor1bluePin = 4;  // B petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 4
const int sensor2redPin = 7;  // R petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 5
const int sensor2greenPin = 6;  // G petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 6
const int sensor2bluePin = 5;  // B petal on RGB LED module connected to digital pin 7

// Define Motors
int motor1 = 9;
int motor2 = 10;

// declare sensors
int sensorValue1;
int sensorValue2;

// declare rates and delay.
int serialRate = 9600;
unsigned long loopDelay = 3600000;
int wateringDuration = 20000;

void setup() {
// set LED's
  pinMode(sensor1redPin, OUTPUT); // sets the redPin to be an output
  pinMode(sensor1greenPin, OUTPUT); // sets the greenPin to be an output
  pinMode(sensor1bluePin, OUTPUT); // sets the bluePin to be an output
  pinMode(sensor2redPin, OUTPUT); // sets the redPin to be an output
  pinMode(sensor2greenPin, OUTPUT); // sets the greenPin to be an output
  pinMode(sensor2bluePin, OUTPUT); // sets the bluePin to be an output
  
  pinMode(motor1, OUTPUT); // motor1
  digitalWrite(motor1, LOW);
  pinMode(motor2, OUTPUT); // motor2
  digitalWrite(motor2, LOW);
  
  Serial.begin(serialRate);  // initialize serial communication at 9600 bits per second:
}

void loop() {
  Serial.println("Top of Loop");
  // safety measure turn motors off every loop  
  digitalWrite(motor1, LOW); // turn off Watering Motor
  digitalWrite(motor2, LOW); // turn off Watering Motor
  // DO Reads of Sensors
  Serial.println("Read Sensor 1");
  sensorValue1 = analogRead(1); 
  Serial.print ("Sensor 1: ");
  Serial.println(sensorValue1);
  if (sensorValue1 != 0 ) {
    setSensorColorAndRunMotor(1,sensorValue1);
  }
  Serial.println("Read Sensor 2");
  sensorValue2 = analogRead(2);
  Serial.print("  Sensor 2: ");
  Serial.println(sensorValue2);
  if (sensorValue2 != 0 ) {
    setSensorColorAndRunMotor(2,sensorValue2);
  }
  delay(loopDelay);
  Serial.println("Loop End");
}

String setSensorColorAndRunMotor(int intSensor, int intSensorValue){
  if (intSensorValue >= 400){
    // RED LIGHT SOLID
    if (intSensor == 1){
      analogWrite(sensor1redPin, 255);  
      analogWrite(sensor1bluePin, 0);
      analogWrite(sensor1greenPin, 0);
      digitalWrite(motor1, HIGH); // turn on Watering Motor
      Serial.println("Turning on Motor1");
      delay(wateringDuration);
      digitalWrite(motor1, LOW); // turn on Watering Motor
      Serial.println("Turning off Motor1");
    }
    if (intSensor == 2){
      analogWrite(sensor2redPin, 255);  
      analogWrite(sensor2bluePin, 0);
      analogWrite(sensor2greenPin, 0);
      digitalWrite(motor2, HIGH); // turn on Watering Motor
      Serial.println("Turning on Motor2");
      delay(wateringDuration);
      digitalWrite(motor2, LOW); // turn on Watering Motor
      Serial.println("Turning off Motor2");
    }
  }
  if (intSensorValue < 400){
    // GREEN LIGHT SOLID
    if (intSensor == 1){
      analogWrite(sensor1redPin, 0);  
      analogWrite(sensor1bluePin, 200);
      analogWrite(sensor1greenPin, 0);
      digitalWrite(motor1, LOW); // turn on Watering Motor
    }
    if (intSensor == 2){
      analogWrite(sensor2redPin, 0);  
      analogWrite(sensor2bluePin, 200);
      analogWrite(sensor2greenPin, 0);
      digitalWrite(motor2, LOW); // turn on Watering Motor
    }
  }
}

Credits

Rich Noordam

10 projects • 33 followers

Many interests, computing obviously being one of them. MS SQL Server Database Administration, Reporting, Data Science, and more.

Plant Moisture Monitoring and Watering with LED Indicator

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

Motivation

The Build

Schematics

watering and monitoring schematic

Code

Monitoring and watering code.

Updated (Better) Code

Credits

Rich Noordam

Comments

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Plant Moisture Monitoring and Watering with LED Indicator

Plant Moisture Monitoring and Watering with LED Indicator

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

Motivation

The Build

Schematics

watering and monitoring schematic

Code

Monitoring and watering code.

Updated (Better) Code

Credits

Rich Noordam

Comments

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