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Soil Probe Update

A project log for Plant Friends

Plant Friends is a wireless plant environmental monitor system. It uses the Raspberry Pi and the Moteino and comes with an Android app!

dicksondickson 08/05/2014 at 01:350 Comments

About the soil probes on ebay, I don't know if they use the lead-free tin type or the leaded type for the finishing hence in my article I mentioned they 'might' contain lead. And frankly, I don't really trust the eBay sellers to provide me with correct information so for everybody's safety sake I had to mention that it might contain lead. Also, after 6 months of use, those eBay probes started to corrode.

Since I want to use Plant Friends for my basil plants as well, I need a probe that is lead free. I was thinking of using two nails as the probe but that is not good against corrosion. So, I designed my own.

This probe is gold plated which will withstand corrosion much better than the eBay ones. I also made it longer (82mm / 3.25 inch) so it can better gauge the moisture when using larger/deeper planting pots. I tested these already and they work extremely well.

Here is a side by side comparison of my custom probe and the eBay version. You can see the eBay probe looks pretty bad after 6 months of use.

I still have a few of these custom probes and you can pick them up from my shop: http://dickson.bigcartel.com/

Shipping internationally. ;)

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