After 2 years, I have finally completed the Greenclay LoRaWAN Smart Garden project! I am now able to monitor and manage my outdoor garden using LoRaWAN. I have developed a complete package which includes a dev kit, garden controller, and mobile app. Here are some technical details on the hardware:
Power consumptions is around 1.6uA in deep sleep
Powered by a single AA LiFePO4 battery with solar replenishment
No regulator needed since the LiFePO4 provides a nominal voltage of 3.2V
Arduino compatible for the nRF52840 which comes with integrated BLE
10 GPIO pins and all standard Arduino outputs
5V regulator with SHDN for interfacing with 5V devices
Vertical USB for easier debugging and field servicing
Fits perfectly in the WP-28F outdoor enclosure from Polycase with room for external connections and daughter boards
The dev kit is essentially designed to run outdoors where low power is needed. I've been running it the backyard for several months and it has been running great!
What you see in the backyard picture are 5 of my kits integrated with my Garden Controller daughter board. The Garden Controller does the following:
Monitors soil moisture and soil temperature
Accurately measures water flow and consumption via pulse input from a water meter
Controls a latching solenoid water valve
Data updates are currently set at 20 minutes and the batteries are still at 100% for the last 5 months. I expect several years of battery life from the project. I also have a mobile app, but I figured the forum would be more interested in the hardware
I developed and designed the entire system myself in spare time, so I had a lot to learn. Thanks for looking and feedback welcome!
“After several iterations, lots of learning, learning how to SMD solder (thanks to this forum), and consulting various other forums... I finally landed on the final product you see today.”
Hummmm, sounds like the Donald ;).
“The best thing (or the worst), I developed and designed the entire solution myself”
Valve control via 12V CDU (2 4700uF caps and h-bridge)
Reads pulse outputs for water flow input via WM-PD
It's currently configured to read and transmit data over LoRaWAN every 20m. I've been using it for several months opening/closing the 12V valves and the battery is at pretty much 100%.
The core board is basically an "advanced" Arduino which uses Adafruit's bootloader and board files for the nRF52840. I say advanced since it is optimized and designed for outdoor use on battery
Hopefully, that's a good thing For SMD I took the advice on here and used a hot plate, a visor, hot air, and a steady hand. It's worked so far even on QFN packages.