That is a great idea, though I’m not sure I agree with you as to why it is a great idea
If we just use a thick enough bolt, it won’t corrode before the sun burns out as long as we don’t measure continuously. Actually, it could even be galvanized or marine grade and it would proberbly last more or less forever. It’s still a great idea though, because the water level sensor gets us a hole in the bottom of the tank and the water pressure from the other side makes it a bit hard to get tight (as reported by almost everyone who made test-prints)
With capacitative detection, we can run the wires through the top of the tank eliminating the need for holes in the bottom. Turns out, it isn’t that hard to make one either: DIY Capacitive Water Level Sensor using ESP32 Touch Read function - YouTube
I’ve orderes some cobber tape on Amazon and plan to see if I can build a capacitor for water tank level detection. After giving it a bit of thought, I don’t think we can make a sensor that is cheaper and better than the one in the flower-part of the pot, but that one is to long to fit in the water-resevoir so we need to make our own for that. The tolerences are also much bigger for that one, so it may be we’ll be ok without voltage regulation and all the other fancy functions of the proper moisture sensor inside the pot.
Perhaps not cheaper but it depends what you mean by better. The sensor that you are using to determine when to water is just binary. Your new parasitic capacitance sensor may just
be as useful to help determine when to water and if it comes in at the top of the pot may also be better for reducing the leak problem. Hysteresis is a big factor in watering plants for both the plant health and battery savings. In general plants like to dry out between watering so air can get at the roots.(speaking as a green thumb. Can’t speak of hydroponics though.
Looking forward to see how your experiment with the new capacitance moisture sensor goes.
There is about 90 mm of space, and this device is more than 13mm including the circuitry, so it wouldn’t fit if it is mounted with the connectors up. It could be mounted the other way - that would make it an almost perfect fit, but that would get us an even bigger hole to get tight.
Good morning folks, I am very pleased to have stumbled upon this thread. This is the perfect design for an automated irrigation system. I’ve been working on a project like this since last year, but this year, I wanted to upgrade it to have app support and to be able to track every aspect through a phone app, and think this is the place that this will be made possible.
Any updates on the status of the Flutter app/Arduino code? I’m leaning more toward an interactive app rather than HA controlling and tracking for my personal edition of this project.
I like that project. I think I’ll be making a copy paste of that when it’s done.
As for the sensor, Its a good way of solving the issue in your design, but I’m not so sure it would work in our application. It drives the price up considerably and it also takes up a lot of space at a placement that will be hard to integrate aesthetically.
How about using a magnet on a floater inside the water-tank and some reedswitches on the other side? It will not be as accurate, but it would mean no wires would have to cross any moisture barriers and it’s a very simple sensor to get a reliable result from.
This isn’t really the place for a discourse on how to run esphome I’m afraid. There are plenty of really good resources out there, including this forum.
I saw you made them, but I didn’t look through it. If the function as you mentioned, then that’s really cool. Nice addtion to the project Is action required from my part? (I’m not a git expert - far from, actually )
