On eBay these have started to become available
Moisture Detection Sensor Corrosion Resistance Probe
I have purchased a couple but I wanted to know if anyone know what makes these corrosion resistant.
so far they seem to work ok, but I have only had the probe in moist soil for about a week. I am using the standard analog 5 volt monitor and reading the probe every 10 minutes. So far the values have not changed much.
I may switch to an actual growing potted plant to monitor the results and see if this probe will actually resist corrosion in potting soil. I may have to reduce the number of collection times as collecting every 10 minutes will generate way too much data to analyze.
I figured I would reach out to the community to see if anyone else has tried these and their experiences. with these probes.
so if anyone else has experience please post as a comment to this thread
Thanks!
"Corrosion resistant" means it takes longer to corrode.
One review on Amazon says it corrodes rather quickly. Let us know how it works for you.
I see the URL didn't work so try this
goo.gl/FBQRFn
or the long version
I have found a very accurate soil moisture sensor which works on capillary reaction and the vacume created. There not as cheap as a basic soil sensor. Note instead of the mechanical vacuum gauge you can get one with a digital presure gauge so you can plug straight into a microcontroller. Hers the link
http://www.irrometer.com/pdf/irrometers/101%20IRROMETER-Family-brochure.pdf
There called irrometers or tensiometer
If you ever go in a business reception and they have a big potted plant look to see if there is a small plastic tube on the soil surface it has a red ball floating on top of the water draw through the capillary tube. I really want to know what they are called but if you find out they should be very cheap then just use whatever to messure the position of the red ball.
Hope that all helps.