I want to introduce my IOT Flower Pot Weighing Scale, it can get and log the weight of a flower pot continuously. So the soil moisture can be get directly. And when the plant need water can be known.

Why using weighing method not measuring capacitance or resistance?

1. a probe needed to be inserted in the pot, it may hurt plant root.

2. measuring capacitance or resistance can't get direct soil moisture value.

For example, my Sinn. 'Stone's Georgia' is 287g when the soil a little dry.

After watering , it became 460g, the 173g is water.

First picture is my Sinn. 'Stone's Georgia' ,taken last year.

Step 1: How It Works

Before weighing，a clear operation is needed to prevent zero drift or temperatue drift or something like that.

The load cell is mounted between the baseboard and fixed plate. One end of the movable plate is connected with a hinge and the other end is placed above aeccentric wheel.

The aeccentric wheel is driven by a MG995 Servo. In top position, the Flower Pot will stand upon the movable plate. Clear operation can be done. In bottom position, the Flower Pot will stand upon the fixed plate. Weighing operation can be done. To prevent damage load cell, at most time the Flower Pot will stand upon the moveable plate. Nodemcu is used to read load cell ,control server and send data to IOT server via WIFI using MQTT protocol.

Step 2: Collect What You Need

Here is a list of everything that is needed for this project:

1. weighing scale ( using its Load Cell )

2. HX711 module

3. NodeMCU with ESP-12E

4. MG995 Servo

5. 5mm thickness ABS Board

6. some 3D printed parts

7. some cable

8. M3 and M4 screws and nuts

Step 3: Make the Weighing Scale

200*250*5 mm ABS board is used as the base of the Weighing Scale.

Load cell is mounted on the board.

Fix plate is composed with the original plate and a 3d printed part.

Movable plate is a 180*190*5mm ABS board with another 5mm ABS reinforcing rib.

The hinge, servo holder , aeccentric wheel is 3d print part.

Glue or screw them.

A sketchup file can tell you where to put parts.

Flower Pot Weighing Scale.skp
Download View in 3D

Step 4: Wiring

Wire them up.

If ESP8266 deep sleep is used ,GPIO16 and RST pin should be connected, no use in this application.

Step 5: Coding

Arduino is used, and HX711 library is used, here the link

https://github.com/bogde/HX711

Nodemcu sends MQTT message to a domoticz server in my NAS. So MQTT client library needed.

https://github.com/knolleary/pubsubclient

A bug with HX711 library, that is a software reset will occur when connecting MQTT server after including HX711 library. Comment "void yield(void) {};" in HX711.CPP can solve the problem.

Your SSID , Password, MQTT setting should be modified before using.

const char* ssid = "YOUR SSID";

const char* password = "YOUR PASSWORD";

const char* mqtt_domoticz = "YOUR SERVER";