SoilHumiditySensor
| Project SoilHumiditySensor | |
|---|---|
| |
| Investigation of soil humidity sensors | |
| Status | In progress |
| Contact | bertrik |
| Last Update | 2019-05-12 |
Introduction
A number of types of soil humidity sensors exist. Many have the problem that the electrodes corrode.
For example, see this video by Andreas Spiess that compares a couple of types.
I got a few probes of the capacitive type, with the electrodes themselves being covered in solder mask.
References
Hardware
I got these capacitive ones from Aliexpress. I put heatshrink wrapping around the top part of the probe, to protect the electronics from moisture.
It's connected to a Wemos D1 mini ESP8266 board, as follows:
- probe GND (black) to Wemos D1 mini pin D5
- probe VCC (red) to Wemos D1 mini pin D0
- probe AOUT (yellow) to Wemos D1 mini pin A0
This way, all connections on the Wemos D1 are right next to each other and the wire with the 3-pin connector can simply be plugged into the Wemos D1 mini without having to modify the cable.
The software puts a low level on pin D5 (to emulate GND) and a high level on pin D0 (to emulate VCC). The idea is that the operating current of the probe is low enough for this trick to work.
Software
See my github repository.
The software takes a measurement at a regular interval and sends it over MQTT.