I have been building a hydroponics controller for about the past 2 years and I am nearly 3/4 complete. I am frequently learning new things from answers found here on the forum, so I am always updating my code or a circuit and want some feedback regarding the entirety of it when I complete it. I don't know how to use fritzing, so I drew this up in a MS Word document using shapes and text boxes. I tried to be as descriptive as possible, though brief and to the point in the text boxes.
So far I have been able to pass sensor readings to my smartphone over the internet, and have ability to change digital pin states at will. Blynk is very easy to work with.
Wanted to join the discussion on your Hydroponics project. I have been writing code and developing a monitoring system for an "Aquaponics" project as well. I have a functional prototype that is posting data to an IOT server and sends alerts via SMS and Email. I monitor water temp, air temp, humidity, water flow and system power. pH, DO, and conductivity are still done manually ... and am developing an auto feeder tied to the system as well.
Your system uses many more "active" controls so I may not be able to critique the system in the same manner as you are wanting, but would be happy to share, and learn from our common experiences.
Let me know if you would like an email address to discuss off the forum.
Any ideas or visible concerns are what I seek. I am curious to know if you have a means of controlling your liquid flow with valves? This is proving to be the trickiest facet of my project. The valves that are mostly on the market are the solenoid valves that generally require 3 PSI of pressure. However, my pumps are only capable of producing 2.xx psi, so I am in search of a workaround. The sad part is that I do need something that can attached to PVC because my dosing heads tie into a pvc rail, as well as the Atlast Scientific probes will also tie in on another rail.
Hi Michael, good to see you are making progress with the system. I bet you have learned a whole lot over this time.
With the water valves, you say they are solenoid valves, which infer they are simply on or off type devices, is this correct ?
Or are they some form of proportional valve, where you need provide an air supply to for driving force and the Arduino gives a pilot signal ?
Is there any merit in using a simple opening valve which you could drive by stepper motor ?
I imagine doing so, together with the correct valve, would give you very precise and repeatable control of flow rate.
I have not used the online service Blynk, but how are you finding Blynk for your application, is it okay ?
