{"id":322,"date":"2023-01-15T16:32:14","date_gmt":"2023-01-15T16:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trewest.dev\/blog\/?p=322"},"modified":"2023-12-05T09:34:34","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T09:34:34","slug":"project-esp8266-plant-watering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trewest.dev\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/15\/project-esp8266-plant-watering\/","title":{"rendered":"Project: ESP8266 Plant Watering"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\tThis is post 15 of 21 in the series “Project Overviews”<\/em>\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t

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A series of posts detailing and highlighting projects that I’ve made.<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/label>\n\n\t\t\t

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  1. Project: Bugtrakt<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  2. Project: Imgalib<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  3. Project: Go Fish!<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  4. Project: trewest.dev<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  5. Arduino Light effects<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  6. Project: Mini Stacker<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  7. Project: Arduino NES Controller<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  8. Project: Metroidvania-Like<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  9. Project: Susminer<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  10. Project: Farming Demo<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  11. Project: VRC Basement<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  12. Project: Hash Clear<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  13. Project: Titan Help<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  14. Project: Computer Craft Scripts<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  15. Project: ESP8266 Plant Watering<\/span><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  16. Project: Golf Demo<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  17. Project: Ghost Holic<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  18. Project: Multi-Chat Viewer<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  19. Project: Interview Simulator<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  20. Project: Healer’s Journey<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  21. Project: Biota<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/ol>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

    Status: Untested<\/mark>
    Type: Microcontroller
    Technology: ESP8266, Arduino, PlatformIO<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Back to Portfolio<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

    After I had become somewhat comfortable with programming for Microcontrollers using Arduino\/PlatformIO I decided that I’d make something that’d be a little practical, something that’d water some plants for me whenever the soil was too dry. Thankfully there’s kits for this already made with some simple code! Using relays to power on and off water pumps and taking in data from soil moisture meters makes it a very simple affair. But that’s no fun for a programmer, so I figured I’d change up the formula.
    This caused me to utilize pumps to manage water PH (Up and Down) to keep it as neutral as possible, while also being able to mix in some nutrients as needed, making it usable for Hydroponics which was a field of interest to me at the time. And then of course there’s still a pump that feeds water to everything as needed. Additionally, I had water level sensors that could make sure we’re not running pumps dry and accidentally killing them. But since this is a IOT board I of course had to try and make it capable of internet connection and remote monitoring, which I did do some things for but since I didn’t get to the stage of deploying the device and code I never really expanded beyond toggling pumps on and off, and never made a decent web interface for it. Ideally I would’ve made it use websockets to connect to a local server of some kind that’d store historical data, but again I didn’t get to the refinement stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    A plant of mine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    So, why didn’t I test and use this code in the end? Well there’s a few things. It was getting costly for one and investing more into was difficult to justify. Secondly my garden had a lot of troubles such as my pets frequently messing with the plants, so adding fragile computers to the mix of it didn’t seem like a great idea. Third it was somewhat unnecessary as Florida is a very relaxed climate for plants, we have enough rainwater that plants don’t need too much help. And fourth I was starting to run into issues with the board I was using losing too much power running everything, I’m not trained in electrical engineering and stuff like this is just a hobby for me, but I’m guessing running everything was just drawing too many amps from the microcontroller, which would cause it to reset. And while I could simplify it down some more and hope it’d be fine, I’d rather not and just try and make some more cool stuff with the things I have than risk burning something out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n