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Autonomous Plant Watering

blog.monotonous.org

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Re: Autonomous Plant Watering

#11

Post by nkurz »

joshstrange wrote: post #3
nihakue wrote: post #2

The Wifi outlet seems like mega overkill to run a schedule. Couldn't you just use one of these? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=socket+timer+us&safe=off&b...

Those normally work in 30min increments minimum, this stays on for 20 seconds, once a week. I already own a "smart outlet" so the cost for me would be less than $10 to build this, I just got into growing herbs and this would be a really awesome setup.

In case it helps anyone, there's a well-documented hack for modifying one of the more common types of rotary timers to allow much shorter increments: http://hackaday.com/2011/09/09/repeat-timer-hacked-for-35-mi...

This wouldn't work if you want 1 minute a week (since the cycle repeats every 35 minutes), but for hydroponics sometimes you want a short duration with very frequent repetitions, and the electronic timers (which are preferable in most other ways) don't provide enough on/off cycles per day or week.

Re: Autonomous Plant Watering

#12

Post by joshstrange »

nkurz wrote: post #11
joshstrange wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those normally work in 30min increments minimum, this stays on for 20 seconds, once a week. I already own a "smart outlet" so the cost for me would be less than $10 to build this, I just got into growing herbs and this would be a really awesome setup.

In case it helps anyone, there's a well-documented hack for modifying one of the more common types of rotary timers to allow much shorter increments: http://hackaday.com/2011/09/09/repeat-timer-hacked-for-35-mi... This wouldn't work if you want 1 minute a week (since the cycle repeats every 35 minutes), but for hydroponics sometimes you want a short duration with very frequent repetitions, and the electronic timers (…

Interesting, I did some more searches and found this http://smile.amazon.com/Digital-Programmable-Socket-Energy-S... According to the Q&A you can get it down to second acuracy so you could do the 20 seconds. I'd much rather do this than a wifi switch that I need another system to toggle it.

Re: Autonomous Plant Watering

#13

Post by JshWright »

scott_hardy wrote: post #10
JshWright wrote: post #9

I don't understand the reasoning behind the overly complicated air pumping setup. Why not just use a small submersible aquarium pump?

These reasons are (casually) mentioned in the post: * "the deeper your reservoir the more efficient the water gets pumped. As the water gets consumed, the pump gives less output" * "If the reservoir runs dry the motor won’t catch fire. That apparently is a thing water pumps." * "Since the water is only going through a simple tube and not an expensive motor, you can pump a nutrient solution. If you want to pamper your…

An impeller driven pump moves a fixed amount of water per revolution.

There are very few pumps on the market nowadays (even the super cheap ones) that don't have run-dry protection. In any case, no pump is going to catch fire running for 20 seconds.

It is very common to add fertilizer to planted aquariums. It's dissolved in the water, and therefore makes no difference to the pump (it doesn't change the "pumping" properties of the water at all).

Re: Autonomous Plant Watering

#14

Post by atomical »

"Watering the plant would be too easy, we need a technological solution that will hydrate the plant and not require us to change our comfortable habit of neglect."

Sounds like the typical eureka moment.

Re: Autonomous Plant Watering

#16

Post by fovc »

nkurz wrote: post #11
joshstrange wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those normally work in 30min increments minimum, this stays on for 20 seconds, once a week. I already own a "smart outlet" so the cost for me would be less than $10 to build this, I just got into growing herbs and this would be a really awesome setup.

In case it helps anyone, there's a well-documented hack for modifying one of the more common types of rotary timers to allow much shorter increments: http://hackaday.com/2011/09/09/repeat-timer-hacked-for-35-mi... This wouldn't work if you want 1 minute a week (since the cycle repeats every 35 minutes), but for hydroponics sometimes you want a short duration with very frequent repetitions, and the electronic timers (…

I wonder if you could chain two timers, picking their periods and durations appropriately to get a much longer combined period with the correct duration.

Re: Autonomous Plant Watering

#17

Post by zyxley »

atomical wrote: post #14

"Watering the plant would be too easy, we need a technological solution that will hydrate the plant and not require us to change our comfortable habit of neglect." Sounds like the typical eureka moment.

What's your opinion on robot vacuums?

Re: Autonomous Plant Watering

#18

Post by mod »

foxhop wrote: post #4

http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/ | hugelkultur is real autonomous plant watering - I have built 4 of them on my .35 acre property.

Hey, I've got one half-built! I was building mine in a line/row and trying to get it as tall as possible, but I could only reasonably get it to about 4 feet. I imagine it'll settle to ~2 feet in the end. It's about 3 feet wide at the base and about 45 feet long, mostly awaiting me to mound the dirt up.

I haven't decided what to plant it with, though.

Re: Autonomous Plant Watering

#19

Post by heffo »

fovc wrote: post #16
nkurz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case it helps anyone, there's a well-documented hack for modifying one of the more common types of rotary timers to allow much shorter increments: http://hackaday.com/2011/09/09/repeat-timer-hacked-for-35-mi... This wouldn't work if you want 1 minute a week (since the cycle repeats every 35 minutes), but for hydroponics sometimes you want a short duration with very frequent repetitions, and the electronic timers (…

I wonder if you could chain two timers, picking their periods and durations appropriately to get a much longer combined period with the correct duration.

Well, you could use 2 timers with the same period, if they are accurate.

You would plug in timer 1, so that its output (output 1) is on. You would set timer 2 so that output 2 would turn on as soon as timer 2 receives power. When there are only 30 seconds left in timer 1's on cycle, you would plug timer 2 into a separate outlet.

Since they are synced, but only overlap by 30 seconds, they will only both be on for 30 seconds. You would then need some kind of AND that would only turn on the pump if output 2 and output 1 are both on.

Re: Autonomous Plant Watering

#20

Post by heffo »

joshstrange wrote: post #3
nihakue wrote: post #2

The Wifi outlet seems like mega overkill to run a schedule. Couldn't you just use one of these? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=socket+timer+us&safe=off&b...

Those normally work in 30min increments minimum, this stays on for 20 seconds, once a week. I already own a "smart outlet" so the cost for me would be less than $10 to build this, I just got into growing herbs and this would be a really awesome setup.

It may be possible, but perhaps not, to just lower the pump output so that it takes 30 minutes to water the plant. That might be too little output to work though, because that is 2 orders of magnitude longer.
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