Watering the garden

Projects General Guidance
2

C4m4l340:
Hi.

Some days ago, i was helping my girlfriend with a basic arduino demo for school, and that feeling i thought was dead, of electronics with programming, woke up again, so i decided to feed that feeling, and build a watering project for our garden...

I have never played with arduino before, just played with IC and digital electronics raw!

This will not be only some prototype, but i intend to put it to work with some pretty case :stuck_out_tongue:
So, this post is to gather opinions from you.

Due to garden dimentions, about 20m long, and diferent water needs, one side is less exposed to sun, i came up with this:

4 moisture sensors (capacitive)
3 ardunio nano (to load the program using USB) connected using RS485 wiring.

Slave1 with 2 sensors and water valve
Slave2 with 2 sensors and water valve
Master with LCD 20x4 or 16x2, 5 keys keypad, real time clock

The ideia behind 2 salves, is to reduce the distance between moisture sensors and arduino.
The sensors will be berried under the grass and the arduinos will be on fixed on the wall.

Programming ideia:

  • Organize the sensors in groups (2 by ardunio) and calculate the average of group to open the water valve
  • The monitor will work on a configured time interval. ex from 6:00am to 7:00am
  • The master will have a menu, to set the clock, and configure interval, and groups.
  • The final fase will add some WIFI module with antenna, to connect with blynk.
  • The water will open if within the interval, some sensor min value is reached, and check every 5 minutes until interval ends or sensor max value is reached. Min and Max values are not defined yet.

This is my startup point.
Please let me know your opinion.

First : you are lucky to have a GF that has interest in such things.
Second : I would offer to make smaller projects.
1 ) one Arduino with one sensors and output for relays.
get this to work, add more sensors.
2) make a second, dupliace the first, make a seconds, third, foorth,etc.
once you prove that you can get the parts to work, great.
take a separete Arduino and add a display wiwth menu. I would offer to use an ESP8266 or ESP32
two reason :
-faster/more memory, to drive the display
-has built in WiFi
Get everything to talk. be able to create a set point, say for the shady parts, send to the local Arduino controlling that valve. send the settings for one one in the sunny parts,
As a note, you can also get weather on-line. predict rain and no water in the morning if it is to rain in the afternoon.

also, for a small garden, I would only allow one sprinkler to go on at a time. just to make sure that it has enough pressure to cover the area. Sounds like a fun project. I am in the middle of something similar.
using 110VAC solenoid valves from dishwashers to allow pressure.
using only 1 ESP8266, waiting on the RS485 for the captive soil sensors
using relays for the high power to the solenoids.
waiting on the encoder for the menu system.
I have not started anything, only have half the parts.