Introduction: Smart Plant Watering

By https://github.com/eplx
About: Computer engineer.

Hello! Using this project you can water your plant/s automatically considering external temperature, humidity and light. Also you can use this as a home weather station and check temperature, humidity and lightness from your cellphone or computer just using a browser..

Are you leaving on vacation and nobody is available to water the plants.... This project will help you!!

Requirements:

  1. PCB
  2. ESP8266 NodeMCU
  3. DHT11 sensor (Temperature & Humidity)
  4. Relay
  5. Light sensor
  6. Box / Container
  7. Headers
  8. Water pump (12V)

  9. small diameter transparent clear soft hose (may vary based on your water pump connectors)

I am still working on some aspects of this project and making some adjustments. This is a working version but I plan to add new features. If you have any recommendation, please comment!

The following steps will help you to have your first smart plant watering prototype ... Feel free to add your comments/suggestions. Thanks!

Step 1: Use This Schematic and Test It on a Protoboard

Follow schematic and replicate this into the protoboard...

you need the following items:
1. Protoboard
2. ESP8266 NodeMCU
3. DHT11 sensor (Temperature & Humidity)
4. Relay
5. Light sensor
6. Water pump (12V)
7. small diameter transparent clear soft hose (may vary based on your water pump connectors)

Step 2: Working on the PCB - Weld Headers for ESP8266 and Sensors Based on Schematics

If you already tested the circuit on a protoboard, now we can move this to the next stage.. Let's use a PCB and weld headers for the esp8266 and sensors. Wiring of them is on the back...

Note: If you see the back of the PCB... welds are not very good but consider this is the first prototype... if you have suggestions/comments... please feel free to add them :)

Step 3: Insert ESP8266, Sensors and Relay

Insert ESP8266, sensors (DHT11 and photocell) and relay (5v) into the headers... (I think that you can weld them directly to the board... but I preferred to use headers to easily remove them if needed).

Tip: for the Light sensor connection I used heat shrinkable sleeves for the cables so the photocell's pins are protected from movements.

Step 4: Preparing the Water Jerry Can & Water Pump (12v)

You can use any water jerry can you have. I have used a 10 litres water jerry can so it has enough autonomy for a couple of weeks.

The water pump is 12v (1A) so I connect it directly to an external power source.

Step 5: Loading the Code & Test It

You can use Arduino IDE to program your ESP8266 (NodeMCU).

Please get latest code version from this repository: https://github.com/eplx/esp8266-Plants-Watering/tr...

The first time you load the code, the device will work as an AP and you will need to connect to this WIFI network for further configuration:

SSID: 1SmartWaterPlant

Password: water

Then, you can access the device from any browser using the following:

http://YOUR_DEVICE_IP:8356/html --> check status (Temperature, Humidity, etc)

Note: you can get your Device IP Address looking at the Serial Monitor output from the Arduino IDE.