Automatic Plant Watering System
Designed, programmed, tested, printed, and assembled an automatic incognito plant watering system.
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The rock is specially made from PLA via 3D printing, internally it holds a waterproof servo as well as a rack and pinion system. There is an external capacitive moisture sensor.
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Additional housing exists for the Arduino UNO microcontroller and wiring system.
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User: Indoor Plant Owners
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Solution: A plant watering system that looks like a rock, sits on the soil of the planter, and detects moisture amount to determine when to hold/release water.
Important design requirements:
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Moisture Sensor
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Place to hold water
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Mechanism to release water
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Easy to install/use
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Looks ok
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Cheap/Affordable
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Wire housing
Specialty Design:
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Using Solidworks, the design was assembled.
Individual 3D printed components include:
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rack & pinion
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rock bottom & top shells
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Internal holding stand for rack
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shelf to attach the servo
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Testing & Calibration:
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The completely dry & wet capacitive values of the soil had to be determined
Dry Soil Resistance = 651​
Wet Set Resistance = 128
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Wrote into the code for the necessary equations. Converting values from capacitance to moisture percentage.​
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Range = Min Value - Max Value
= 128 - 651 = 523
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Moisture % ={ 1-[(Sensor Value-Min Value)/ Range] } x 100%
Moisture % ={ 1-[(Sensor Value-128)/ 523] } x 100%
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