Plant Watering Revisited

Projects General Guidance
1

So I am revisiting the plant watering project, I have run various projects in the past, I had a couple of basil plants thriving for several years before indoors and eventually had a cloud setup but I want to streamline, I have some questions about approach

yesterday I set up with the Nano RP2040 Connect and was having issues with power (relay and pump) eventually I attempted to smooth the supply and because of aging eyes and small connections I let the magic smoke out, the board no longer wants to connect so I guess thats that.

I do not have any more nano's but I do have a few MKR Wifi1010's and I have a relay shield. My question is what is your preferred method of powering these? I really only have one wall socket available to me so would like to use a 240v-5v 2amp supply for the pump through a relay and the board without having it drop connection due to power spikes etc

has anyone used this shield? how did you power the project?

thanks

Dan

2

It looks like a board mentioned in forum before.
Try the Search Forum function, up and to the right in this window.

3

can you give a link to the relay shield? will it work off RP2040 3.3V logic?

post a schematic showing connections and power supplies?

4

the shield is here its for the MKR not Nano, yes it runs off 3.3v, it has a proto area where I can add a power jack and MOSFET etc, it would have been nice if it actually came with options for power. I did look briefly for a power supply that has a 6.5mm jack and USB, will have another google today

5

as you say the relay board is designed to accept a MKR board
however, the MKR boards uses 3.3V logic as the Nano rp2040 so the nano should be able to drive the relays
have a look at MKRRelayShield_V4.0 schematic
the relays are connected to pins 1 (CMD1) and 2 (CMD2)
power the relay board via its +3.3V and GND pins or screw terminals from the Nano RP2040 +3.3V and GND
implement a simple program to check the RP2040 can switch the relays

note the maximum relay ratings

  • Max. operating voltage: 24 VAC, 50 VDC
  • Max. operating current: 1 A
  • Max. switching capacity: 62.50 VA, 30W

if you are planning to switch any load greater than 1amp (in particular if an inductive load) use an external contactor

6

I bailed on over complicating this and went for an extension socket that has 3 pin and USB outlets, thanks for your inputs though

7

managed to misread post 1 !
thought you were connecting the Rp2040 to the relay shield but I see you are plugging a MKR1010 into it
should be no problem powering the MKR/relay board and pumps etc from the multi-port-USB wall socket
the MKR1010 would operate the relays via pins 1 and 2

8

yeah cheers, just getting it configured now

I would like to see a shield with split power from one source, I have faced this a few times with projects, used MOSFETs and capacitors etc but its a fiddly old game and my eyes, although not really bad they do make it challenging, I am becoming much more of a plug and play type

9

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