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• Wise Orchard smart water valve now available

  Alvaro • 07/28/2016 at 13:21 • 0 comments

  My related project, the Wise Orchard smart water valve is now shipping!

  
  If you liked this HAD smart watering project, you'll love Wise Orchard, see it here: https://wiseorchard.com/ and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest developments http://eepurl.com/brPgWn

• Wise Orchard smart watering valve launched on Kickstarter

  Alvaro • 06/11/2015 at 17:24 • 0 comments

  I've launched a related project on Kickstarter: Wise Orchard. If you liked this, you'll love it!

  See here: http://wiseorchard.com/kickstarter

  It would be awesome if you could share it on your social networks too! every bit helps.
  

• Progress on software

  Alvaro • 08/21/2014 at 00:56 • 0 comments

  The "weather station" is fully functional, showing temperatures from nearby weather stations gathered from meteoclimatic.net (similar to wunderground.com), as well as links to many weather prediction sites, air quality and so on, as well as showing the weather prediction as a full text.

  The camera and guestbook are also fully functional.

  As for the watering subsystem itself, it can be triggered manually or set to water at a fixed time of the day for a specified period of time (about 20 seconds is enough). I'll post updates as I implement and train the neural network system that will decide when and how much to water the plants. The weather data (rainfall, temperatures, forecasts...) is readily available to be fed to the neural network already.

• Sensors and camera

  Alvaro • 08/21/2014 at 00:47 • 0 comments

  The Raspberry Pi board has plenty of GPIO lines available for hooking up sensors such as DS18S20 1-wire temperature sensors:

  http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=65137

  I might also hook up a soil moisture sensor (measuring capacitance) in the future, even though we have more then enough weather data as it is.

  The Pi camera has been a nifty addition to the system. We can now use it to monitor the plants and environment remotely!

  http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/raspberry-pi-camera-module-300x225.jpg

  
  

• Wiring it all

  Alvaro • 08/21/2014 at 00:42 • 0 comments

  I ran the wiring to get the power to the pump behind the wall so it's hidden from view. I also hid the relay circuitry and the 5V power supply (that takes 12V as input from the main power supply). 

  The relay that controls the pump is activated by the Raspberry Pi: a GPIO pin switches a BC547 NPN transistor which switches the 5V relay on.

• A working water pump

  Alvaro • 08/21/2014 at 00:34 • 0 comments

  Initially I got an underpowered pump. It also would allow water to pass through, which would empty my water tank! But fortunately I found the right pump on eBay, and it was pretty cheap too:

  http://www.ebay.com/itm/281103005575

  It's a diaphragm pump, theoretically it can get you 80PSI but don't count on it. It doesn't draw nearly as much power as it says either. But it's just the right size for my purposes!

• Tubing and irrigation emitters

  Alvaro • 08/21/2014 at 00:30 • 0 comments

  I got some transparent tubes that match the pump's nozzles, as well as some

  drip irrigation emitters that I modified so they'd work at higher pressure (I simply cut the inner part that obstructs the inner nozzle).

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