Idea

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1

So I was considering making a small device to remind me to water a plant I have to water every 48 hours. I was gonna just get a small arduino and program it to delay for 48 hours then light up an LED untill reset (if the arduino has a reset button or by a button if it doesnt). I was wondering if I programmed it to just sleep for 48 hours and tried to reduce power usage as much as I could would I be able to run it off a battery or would it chew it up too quickly. I wouldn't want to be changing the battery more than once every month or two. Also which arduino in perticular would be a good model for this project.

Thanks

Michael

2

Hi, a full Arduino would be wasted on such a simple project. I suggest you use an Uno or Nano 3 to develop your sketch, then transfer the sketch to an ATtiny 45 or 85. These chips have just 8 pins, still more than enough for your needs.

A more interesting project would be to get the Arduino to sense the moisture level in the soil and flash the led when its too dry. You can make a probe from a couple of nails!

Paul

3

If you want to wake up the arduino every two days then you would need a real time click chip that can give alarms that could trigger the wake up.

4

PaulRB:
Hi, a full Arduino would be wasted on such a simple project. I suggest you use an Uno or Nano 3 to develop your sketch, then transfer the sketch to an ATtiny 45 or 85. These chips have just 8 pins, still more than enough for your needs.

A more interesting project would be to get the Arduino to sense the moisture level in the soil and flash the led when its too dry. You can make a probe from a couple of nails!

Paul

Hey Paul how hard of a project would this be. I'm pretty new to arduinos.

5

I got my first arduino a week ago and already did that. It's really not hard at all and you can find an abundance of tutorials online.

6

notapantsday:
I got my first arduino a week ago and already did that. It's really not hard at all and you can find an abundance of tutorials online.

What are you referring to, using tiny85 or soil moisture measurement?

Either way, that should be encouraging for Michael!

7

monkeykg:
Hey Paul how hard of a project would this be. I'm pretty new to arduinos.

Michael, none of the parts of the project would be too difficult. The mistake many newbies make is to do it all at once and then when it doesn't work, they don't know where to start figuring out what's wrong.

So, as I suggested before, start with your Uno/Nano/whatever, get the led flashing sketch working. Then work on the timer or moisture sensor part. Then combine the sensor and led flashing parts together, then finally move the circuit & sketch to the ATtiny.