Introduction: Automatic Plant Watering and Soil Moisture Sensing

By plus.google.com/+AmitabhSaran

There are many such instructable created. But the problem is with getting the materials. I am creating this so that people get to know what equipment to buy in India and how to connect them and make them work.

Problem Statement -

1. Can we automatically water the plants when i am going on vacation or do i have to bother my neighbors? Sometimes the neighbors do too much of watering and the plants end up dying anyway. There are timer based devices available in India which water the soil on set interval. They do not sense the soil moisture and the ambient temperature to know if the soil actually needs watering or not.

2. Can we know if the soil actually needs to be watered? Irregular watering leads to mineral loss in the soil and might end up rotting the plants.

3. Can we manually water the soil from remote location?

Solution -

The answer is "Yes, we can" to all the above problem. The solution provided is simple and economical. It requires you to know little bit of electrical and electronics but i feel it is similar to having so much of electrical knowledge so that you can change a bulb. Let me know if you feel any step is complicated. I will try to add more information so that it becomes easy.

Step 1: Materials Needed

1. Soil moisture sensor - (You can search for similar item on ebay)

http://www.ebay.in/itm/Soil-Moisture-DC-5v-Sensor-...

2. Small pump - Toy pump working on 5-6V is enough. Few options available in India are -

http://hacktronics.co.in/home/418-rs-360-small-wat...( this should not be submerged in water)

http://hacktronics.co.in/home/721-small-water-pump...(this should be submerged in water)

3. Arduino -

http://www.ebay.in/itm/291235640103?ssPageName=STR...

4. Pump Controller - (You can make your own circuit with little knowledge of soldering or you can go to shops who sell these electronic equipment and they can point you to people who can help you to solder)

a) Transistor - 2N2222A

b) Resistor - 1K ohm

5. Drip Irrigation Kit - (You can choose depending on how many plants you want to water).

http://www.ebay.in/itm/DRIP-IRRIGATION-KIT-10-PLAN...

6. Connecting Pipe (i used 0.4" pipe) to connect the pump and the drip irrigation main line.

Step 2: Connect the Soil Sensor to the Arduino

I have color coded the wires for easy understanding of how to connect the soil sensor with the arduino.

a. Red wire - Connect the Vcc pin on soil sensor to the +5V pin on arduino

b. Green wire - Connect the Gnd pin on soil sensor to the Gnd pin on arduino

c. Orange wire - Connect the A0 (Analog) pin on soil sensor to the A0 (Analog) pin on arduino

Step 3: Connect the Pump Controller Board to the Arduino

The Pump Controller Board comprises of -

1. 1k ohm resistor

2. 2N2222A transistor

3. 5V Pump Motor

Step 4: The Code to Be Uploaded to Arduino

Copy the code from Code.txt to the .ino file on arduino and upload the code to the arduino.

Attachments

Step 5: Setup the Drip Irrigation Kit

There is enough information on the web on how to setup the drip irrigation kit. I am not getting into details of this.

The point to note here is that there are 6 analog pins on arduino that can be used to sense soil moisture. At the very minimum, one can use the same setup to sense 6 plants. But if designed in a better way, one can use the same setup to sense as many plants in multiple of 6.

I am not going into details of this as this is not the objective of this instructable. I will try to publish another instructable for a better design of the drip irrigation kit so that maximum number of the plant soil moisture can be sensed.

Step 6: Connect the Pump to the Drip Main Line

Step 7: Demonstration of the Full Setup

Step 8: Next Steps

  1. Create an Internet of Plants - Create a IOT framework which will help connect plants of similar variety across the world to get connected.
  2. Connect the arduino wirelessly with the raspberry pi home server so that the plants can be monitored remotely.
  3. Remote Monitoring and Watering of plants - Use GSM based add on board for remote operation
  4. Power Supply - Use solar power as the power need is low. Currently i am using a power bank to power the arduino and the pump motor.
  5. Weatherproof case - Since the device will be used outside, we need to have a weatherproof case to house the electronics.
  6. Add more sensors - Temperature sensor, Humidity sensor.

Do let me know if you think anything else needs to be done as part of this project.