Is Arduino a good option to make automated heating adjustment?
We try to lenghten growing season on research squares by heating the ground with electric heating cable and surfaces with IR heaters.
We have installed electric heating cable (20W/m) to a 3x2 m area. We have rs485 suitable thermal sensors available and loggers for those sensors if they can be used. Loggers produce .dat-files.
In first test we are heating the ground 5 and 2 deg C warmer compared to the control square (natural ground temp). So we need a program which can log the control temp and then turn on the heating until the ground is approx. 2 degrees warmer than control and turn off. After turning off the program could read control temp again after 20 min has passed and start heating again if needed.
Heating cable is 230 V and doesn't need current regulation just ON/OFF switch. Program needs safety setting, that the ground doesn't start to heat if control squares temp is >45 deg C.
Thanks for any advice and interest. You will help our overbooked IT specialists and help fighting climate change.
From a micro-controller perspective this is a fairly trivial project... an Arduino can do this easily.
The other part that you need to consider is the electronics that sit between the Arduino and the 230v heating circuit. A simple relay module will probably be suitable but anything with 230v needs to be treated with a bit of extra caution.
Hi, thanks for your reply. Can you give example hardware that would be needed in the following situation?
Can one micro-controller adjust heating in four squares simultaneously?
If I forget the sensors we already have, what ground temp sensors are easiest to use in this kind of application?
Further into to project, the IR heaters are now always on, but in future the IR:s should also be set off by air temp sensors in same fashion. This means that one micro-controller needs to control 6 relays and have 2 ground te sensor places and 2 air te sensor places.
These types of relay modules are very common and work pretty well.
Always buy from a reputable supplier.. there are a lot of "too good to be true" fakes out there. And again... when dealing with 240v take extra caution.
It's always a good idea to have a good power supply to drive peripherals (like relays)... don't run devices from the Arduino 5v circuit... it is really only designed for low current things like sensors and LEDs.
Yes easily.
DS18B20 temperature sensors are quite common and there are plenty of Arduino examples. They can come in waterproof versions that would be suitable for an in ground situation.
Depending on the Arduino, there are various numbers of GPIO pins that can be connected to inputs/outputs, but even the entry level "Uno" should be able to handle your requirements.
