Introduction: Automatic Irrigation and Fish Feeder

By www.technomentis.com
About: Technomentis is a venture to foster innovation and hands on learning for youngsters at formative ages. We explore, create, design, tinker and innovate at Explorato - our makers space.

Feeding pets (fish/ tortoise) and watering indoor plants are few reasons which make one's out station vacation shorter. This project is aimed at automating both these tasks. The plant pots are equipped with a soil moisture sensor which detects the moisture content of the water in the pots. In the case of a dry pot, water is fed to the pot with a water pump. A fish feeding system is also designed to drop limited quantity of fish food at regular intervals.

Step 1: Components Required:

  1. Arduino UNO R3 x 1
  2. USB Cable x 1
  3. Soil Moisture sensor x 1
  4. Small servo motor x 1
  5. Small breadboard x 1
  6. Relay module x 1
  7. Motor pump x 1
  8. Male to female connecting wires x 20
  9. Male to Male connecting wires x 20

Step 2: Connecting Soil Moisture Sensor to Arduino UNO

Soil Moisture Sensor

A soil moisture sensor measures the quantity of water contained in a material, such as soil on a volumetric or gravimetric basis.

For soil moisture detection Module has two inputs:

• A0, Analog input, which will be connected to Analog pin.

• D0, Digital input, connect it to digital pin.

• GND of moisture sensor to GND of an Arduino board.

• VCC of Moisture sensor to +5V of your Arduino board.

Circuit Connections:

  1. Connect D0 pin of the soil moisture sensor to the digital pin 13 on the Arduino using male to female connecting wire.
  2. Take a male to male wire, connect 1 terminal to the 5V pin on the Arduino and the other terminal of the wire to the breadboard.
  3. Now take 1 male to female wire, connect the female terminal on the +5V of the soil Moisture sensor and the male terminal of the wire to the breadboard where you have connect 5V of Arduino on it.
  4. Connect the GND of Soil Moisture sensor to the GND of an Arduino Board.
  5. Connect the A0 pin of Soil Moisture sensor to the Analog pin A0 on the Arduino Board.

Step 3: Connecting Relay Module With Arduino UNO

Relay Module

A Relay Module is a device used to switch on/off another device based on a control signal. Relay a VCC, GND and Signal pin on one side of the module. On the other side, relay contains 3 pins which says COM (Common), NC (Normally Closed) and NO (Normally Open).

Circuit Connections:

  1. Take a motor pump and the socket wire, now connect the neutral wire of pump to NO of the relay with the help of screw driver.
  2. Take the neutral wire of the socket wire and connect it to the COM pin of the relay with the help of screw driver.
  3. Now connect the remaining wire of socket and pump together.
  4. Take 1 female to male wire, connect the output signal of Relay module to the digital pin 7.
  5. Now take 1 male to female wire, connect the female terminal on the +5V of the Relay module and the male terminal of the wire to the breadboard where you have connect 5V of Arduino on it.
  6. Connect the GND of Relay Module to the GND of an Arduino Board as shown in the figure.

Step 4: Connecting Servo to the Arduino

Servo Motor:

A servo motor is a rotary actuator that allows for precise control of angular position.

It consists of a motor coupled to a sensor for position feedback. By varying the pulse width of the output voltage to a servo, you can move a servo to a specific position. There are 3 wires coming out from a Servo motor (brown, red and orange)-

• Brown wire is GND.

• Red wire is +5v.

• Orange wire is a Signal wire.

Circuit Connections:

Servo motor has three Terminals

  1. The Orange wire of the Servo Motor is the signal Wire which will be connected to Digital Pin 9.
  2. The Brown wire of the Servo Motor is the GND Wire which will be connected to GND of the Arduino UNO.
  3. The Red wire of the Servo Motor is the VCC wire and it will be connected to the 5V pin of the Arduino UNO.
  4. The connections of the Servo Motor will be done using Male to Male connecting wire.

Step 5: Upload the Arduino Sketch

  1. After uploading the code, connect the Arduino via USB to your PC and click on upload button to upload your program in Arduino.
  2. Motor is turned on and off according to the moisture and humidity in soil.
  3. Every 6 seconds fish will get food,you can change the timer according to your requirement.

Attachments

Step 6: Reference Images for Construction