💬 Soil Moisture Sensor Pro Mini

[Justas]

Hi,
Great staff :)
In picture you attached, looks like the led on Arduino Pro is missing. Did you desoldered it or just did something else with it :)?
Regards
Justas

[tonnerre33]

Hi,
I desoldered it for increase the battery life ;) I did the same for the regulator.
You can find more informations here : https://www.mysensors.org/build/battery
Thx for your interest :)

I have just posted the pictures of the v1.1 version. Have fun.

[Daanozz]

Realy cool i try it !!!!!

[Justas]

Hi, again,

OK, one more question: if you have desoldered regulator, I do not see any voltage step up booster? The batteries will go low eventually, but you could use with the booster little longer...
Info from the same https://www.mysensors.org/build/battery :)

[LastSamurai]

@Justas said in 💬 Soil Moisture Sensor Pro Mini:

Hi, again,

OK, one more question: if you have desoldered regulator, I do not see any voltage step up booster? The batteries will go low eventually, but you could use with the booster little longer...
Info from the same https://www.mysensors.org/build/battery :)

But the booster will also use some energy itself and it introduces noise which in my experience really creates problems with the NRF. Imho its better to simply skip the boost converter as the nrf and arduino both work down to 1.8V

[tonnerre33]

@Justas
I am agree with @LastSamurai .
You can find more informations in the @scalz post here https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/5294/inexpensive-3-3v-boost-converter/2 .

But if you want to use more battery capacity, you need to change the extended fuse of the Atmega328 (i wrote an example in the skecth).
If you don't do this the pro mini will restart when the voltage will go under 2.7V in general when the he can continue to run with 2.34V at 8mhz.

[Grumpf]

Know you have a new one but I ordered your PCBs anyway as I had Pro mini laying around. Thank you for your work, I soldered one and it worked immediately. Now I'll go on with the 4 others and try to desolder led/v reg we'll see how many I fucked up this way :)

You saved plants lives, know that !

Cheers.

[tonnerre33]

@grumpf said in 💬 Soil Moisture Sensor Pro Mini:
Thank you Grumpf ;)
For ended well this project i would like to make a beautifull enclosure. But i haven't yet a 3D printer for do it.
Maybe in the end of 2018 cause i have many projects before.
If you haven't an enclosure i advise you to put a wire between the probe and the node because when you will water the plant, the batteries can be drowned.

[Grumpf]

@tonnerre33
Thanks!

My wife is known as Hitler's green thumb, so no risk of overwatering here; this node will dissolve into oblivion by normal decaying before any water ever touches it... Gonna solder the other boards tomorrow though, thanks again for all your work, it's really appreciated! Happy NY 2018 :)

[Grumpf]

Hi, I soldered 4 others, using AA holder instead, figuring it won't hurt as I have room for it. I changed:

//
/* Initialization */
//
void setup()
{
//Setup LED INFO pin
pinMode(LED_PIN_INFO, OUTPUT);
//Setup LED WARNING pin
pinMode(LED_PIN_WARN, OUTPUT);

//Set moisutre sensor pins
for (int i = 0; i < N_ELEMENTS(SENSOR_ANALOG_PINS); i++)
{
pinMode(SENSOR_ANALOG_PINS[i], OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(SENSOR_ANALOG_PINS[i], LOW);
}
//Blink leds to check

blinkLed(LED_PIN_INFO,800);
blinkLed(LED_PIN_WARN,800);
blinkLed(LED_PIN_INFO,400);
blinkLed(LED_PIN_WARN,400);
blinkLed(LED_PIN_INFO,200);
blinkLed(LED_PIN_WARN,200);
blinkLed(LED_PIN_INFO,100);
blinkLed(LED_PIN_WARN,100);
}
To test Leds when initializing and never managed ot have LED1 blink ? Dunno what I did wrong, I used correct resistor and normal 3mm leds, tested the pads and realizing that GND was the pad further from the edge; aligned with the - from the neighboor capacitor... What did I do wrong ?

Thanks,

Grumpf.

[tonnerre33]

@grumpf Hello,
if i remember well, we can't anymore change the state of the output in the setup function.
Try to do this in the presentation function ;)

[Grumpf]

Hi, it worked, you still can shake things a lil' bit in setup (sorry wasn't clear I meant the led test is working). Thanks for your time. I ordered more PCBs today and will keep you posted. I expect no trouble at all as it was designed very well. Thank you again for it!

[UL7AAjr]

Frankenstein monster)

[UL7AAjr]

Here is a core of my capcitive soil moisture sensor with NRF24L on board. It sends periodically measured value (about once per 10 minutes). Battery is CR2032 able to work about one year. Any two isolated electrodes can be connected.

[MikaelJones]

Nice! How long should we expect the 2xAAA batteries to last? Of course depending on quality but more than a year?

[UL7AAjr]

@mikaeljones
it's depend of how often sensor will send data. I suppose that much more then one year if exchange data interval will be 5 min. The problem is that nrf24L not reliable especially in "noisy" environment. And finding a free channel will take a time that affect battery lifetime .

[Thucar]

@UL7AAjr do you feel like sharing some information on that sweet looking sensor of yours? I'm doing my research on different styles of capacitive soil moisture sensors right now and would love to hear about your solution and the reasoning behind the choices you made :)

[UL7AAjr]

@thucar
Hello, i'm not sure it is to good idea to public links here, but there is my personal website where is some sensors examples in sensors history page http://vegimatics.com/products/history/

And of course, we can discuss here some interesting for you things)

[MikaelJones]

So would you say there are better solutions to building a soil moisture monitoring for many plants ol the cheap? For me, it’s mainly for fun and making sure I don’t miss watering my plants at home :)

[UL7AAjr]

@mikaeljones
I think the most suitable device for monitoring processes is a tablet PC based on Intel and Windows. There are simple and cheap models costing less than $ 200. This is much simpler and more versatile than developing advanced controllers with a display. In addition, you can get remote access in a simple way, for example, TeamViewer. Well, the simplicity of developing a program is also important.

Since I use the RS-485 protocol and Modbus, it's easy for me to connect all sensors and pumps via USB-RS485 adapter.

I do not use wireless sensors, as I believe that if a pipe comes to the plant for irrigation, it is not difficult to add a cable.

However, from time to time, I return to developing my own simplified watering controller :)