Planting4U - Automated Irrigation System With a Website Interface
Introduction: Planting4U - Automated Irrigation System With a Website Interface
Have you ever been on holiday and worried about your plants at home? Yes, me neither! However, the people that consider themselves green-fingered or plant-loving might have just stumbled upon a system that finally allows them to enjoy their holiday and forget about their oxygen-producing friends at home.
The Planting4U irrigation system is a newly developed platform that controls the watering procedure while providing essential information to the user via its own website. This allows for complete control and overview from anywhere in the world. This product is easily expandable and can be further developed to suit all your needs.
The following instructable will show you all the steps and methods required for reproducing the automated irrigation system. This DIY project can also be used as a guideline if you feel adventurous and want to create your own smart irrigation system using different components and/or supplies.
The CAD designs and software components for the irrigation system are all available in the following GITHUB repository: https://github.com/Patrick2428/P4U
Supplies
Raspberry Pi Zero - https://www.kiwi-electronics.nl/raspberry-pi-zero-...
2 Channel Relay Module - https://www.reichelt.nl/nl/en/developer-boards-rel...
RPI Analog to Digital Converter - https://www.reichelt.nl/nl/en/raspberry-pi-analog-...
Moisture Sensor - https://www.reichelt.nl/nl/en/arduino-moisture-sen...
Temperature and Humidity Sensor - https://www.reichelt.nl/nl/nl/ontwikkelaarsraden-t...
Mini displacement pump - https://opencircuit.nl/Product/Mini-pomp-2.5V-6V
PVC Hose (7-9mm) - https://opencircuit.nl/Product/PVC-Slang-7-9mm-tra...
Perfboard ( 70 x 100 mm) - https://www.hobbyelectronica.nl/product/prototypin...
Additional:
Electrical wiring; soldering equipment; 3D printer
Skrews: 4x 30mm M3; 8x 10mm M3; 2x 12mm M3
Nuts: 14 x M3
Step 1: Electrical Hardware Setup
The electrical circuit required for the system is shown in the figure above. The Raspberry Pi Zero (RPI) serves as the processing unit for the irrigation system. It instructs the displacement pump to disperse water to the plants whenever the moisture level, detected by the moisture sensor, is too low. Additionally, the relative humidity and the temperature of the environment is obtained using the temperature and humidity sensor.
Since the user might be interested to know the conditions of their plants and the water cycle all important data is saved to a local database, of which the most relevant is uploaded to a locally run website.
A glance at the different electrical connections and data paths:
I2C Interface
The I2C interface on the RPI (SDA and SCL) allows for multiple master and slave connections. This standard allows you to connect multiple devices such as temperature sensors, moisture sensors, and ADCs. 33
This gives you the possibility to connect a large number of sensing units depending on how many plants you have and how much you would like to expand the system. It is important to know that each sensor requires a separate address for the I2C interface to work. This, unfortunately, limits the usage of similar components as they mostly come with 2-6 different address configurations.
In our case, we can connect,
2 x SHT-31D temp and hum sensor with available addresses 0x44 and 0x45.
4 x ADS1115 ADC with available addresses 0x48, 0x49, 0x4A and 0x4B
ADC Connection
The moisture sensor has an analog signal output, which the RPI cannot process as it has no onboard analog to digital converters. For this purpose, an additional ADS1115 ADC is required which can connect up to 4 analog devices. The ADC sends the converted signal to the RPI via I2C. As we established previously up to 4 ADS1115 ADCs can be connected, which allows for a total of 16 moisture sensors to be connected to the system.
Relay Connection
The 2 module relay is used as a switch, to turn the displacement pump on or off. When the relay receives a HIGH signal from the RPI it turns the switch on, allowing for current to flow to the motors of the pump. When the signal is LOW the switch stays off. 152