I am still trying to figure out the board and its pins, but with those that are meant to read voltage or current I think I can figure out. Not sure if there are many current based sensors since doing the same with a voltage sensor seems quite simple though. But those watermark sensors just puzzle me.
For a little background on how technical you can go while talking to me, I managed to get my MKR GSM 1400 working fine reading water pressure and sending it over SMS. Even implemented a watchdog with a library and my own debugging macros (before finding out there are libraries for that too). Not much, but at least I am familiar with the technology and understand half the threads of the forum. Also, english is not my mother tongue, so please, forgive my mistakes as long as my wording remains undestandable and meaningfull.
What would you look for at the soil moisture sensors from arduino store to find out if they are compatible? The search was inconclusive for me, and tried to avoid the "Soil" keyword in the search since I could only see it that one occurrence on the documentation that you referred to.
Although now that you guys understand it to be a soil moisture sensor (that is what I hoped it would be), I noticed your search says IRROMETER used it, but also others. So if propiatory, at least it can be licensed so others can use. May be the ones sold at arduino store are the right ones?
Excuse my lack of ability, but I am not sure regarding the resemblance between the schematics at arduino documentation and the suggested circuit shown above. The circuit suggests it is some kind of variable resistor part of a voltage divider, meaning if I provide a voltage at the output pin (may it be a digital output or simply VCC), the analog input pin lets me calculate its resistance indirectly knowing the reference resistor R1. Perhaps the output pin is the common signal at the arduino doc? But why is it surrounded by zenner diodes? Protection and making the schematics confusing for noobs may be?
Anyway, how does this require a special "watermark sensor" pin. Is it because it is an input requiring a pull-up resistor like the watermark sensor? Feels like a simple plain analog voltage input without the pull-up resistor, so I am pretty certain I am missing something important here.
I've been staring at the PCB schematics for a while already and I still do not understand it. Sorry. That is still beyond my abilities.
As these inputs have clearly been designed for a specific 3rd-party proprietary part, they should have named the manufacturer and given links to compatible products.
I would suggest that you contact Irrometer and ask them - as Arduino seem to have failed in providing support/documentation.
There's a "techsupport" email address at the foot of their web pages.
I guess that's probably why they've done these as specific "Watermark" inputs: so that users don't have to worry about the details, just "Connect Watermark Sensors Here"?
Yes, I'm sure they could just be used as standard analogue inputs.
Weird Arduino manufactures soil moisture sensors and not tell how to use them, right? May be they are third party.
That paragraph regarding the voltage output adapter is kind of hinting why there were issues for the guy at the thread about the precision issues with this reading. Perhaps he was missing the adapter or used the wrong sensor altogether. Seems like clockwork for now.
I shall look into the irrometer brand and do some more research before bothering you guys any further. Thanks a lot!!!
Could these pins then be used with the new generation of capacitive moisture sensors? The discharge seems useless now because the capacitive sensors do not need reduction after oxidised. But perhaps than can be left unused, redo the reference and use as analog pins. Sounds crazy?
After 500ms of applying power to the adapter, an accurate reading will be available and updated every second while powered. Standard range of measurement is 0 to 239 centibars/kPa represented as 0 to 2.8VDC output (0.0117 volts/centibar).
NOTE: The 200SS-VA adapter does not provide sensor isolation and is designed primarily for battery powered
devices with no connection to earth ground. If multiple adapters are being read on the same device, power and
ground must be switched independently for each adapter to avoid interference between sensors in the ground.
For a multi-sensor alternative with a SDI-12 output, please see PN 200SS-SDI.
