Automatic Plant Watering System Using Arduino

Hello friends in this instructables i will show you how i made this automatic plant watering system using arduino in a simple way that almost anybody can follow

This project will definitely steal the heart of plant lovers! Even though im being the one :)

Most of the indoor plant dehydrate because of lack of care by the caretakers(us) and i thought across this issue for a while and i wanted to make something that will automatically look after the plant wven though nobody is around

After quite a lot of research i made up my mind to build something useful that will help the plants live to their lifespan

I made use of arduino and moisture sensor for this purpose and mainly to show the live status of the soil i equipped this device with a OLED module also

So in short let me explain to you how this project works

This is powered by arduino uno board and uses soil moisture sensor to check the status if the soil is dry or wet and if the soil is dry the sensor sends signal to arduino board

The board then powers up the submersible water pump and wets the soil to some extent untill the moisture is detected by the soil sensor and stops pumping water automatically

When the soil is dry the OLED shows a smiley face with sad and when it is wet it will show a happy face

The body is 3d printed and its a print in place part and no need of any additional work and the design is made so well that it has soo many features that i will be explaining to you going forward

I also have given a detailed working video along with build tutorial in the end of this project.

These are the supplies that you will need to make this project

Arduino Uno from amazon

Soil moisture sensor

OLED Module

5V Relay Module

DC pin 12v

Submersible water pump

Double battery holder with a switch

Single battery holder with switch

Jumper cables

Arduino IDE

3d Printer

PLA filament

Soil

Plant

Hose for pump

Water

Piece of board to hold the electronics

These are amazon affiliate links and upon qualifying sales i may receive a small percent of sales at no extra cost to you

I made the design using TINKERCAD and you can edit my original design here

The most challenging part of this project was to make a design that serves several purposes, Now you may wonder what are those purposes?

Design should be stable enough to hold the soil and plant and it should be elevated so that pests are out of reach

So i came up with this design, the base holds as a reservoir to hold the water, the top is in the shape of a funnel with a hole in the center that will squeeze out the excess water that will cause stagnant water and spoil plant growth

The design has a slot to flush out excess water and also a place to hold the soil moisture sensor

In case if the electronics break and if the pump continuously pumps water then nothing to worry the overflow slot will flush out water by itself and all this happens without a drop of spillage anywhere on the part

How cool this is isnt it? In the images on the step above i also have given you a xray view of the part so that you can see the inside of the part where the water circulation happens

You can simply import my design to your slicer and slice the model considering the default setting that i have shown in the steps above

I made design in such a way that there is no need of any rafts or supports at the time of print and also it eliminates the need of post processing the model after it is printed

I chose combination of yellow and black color to print and this choice is left to you

Print time was around 5 hours in my case and this may change depending on the type of printer and settings

Here is the electronics circuit for this project, you may seem it difficult at the first view but is easy than you think

Let me break it down with an explanation component wise so that it is easier for anyone

I will divide the project into 2 parts since we are using 2 different type of battery to power the project

The first is the dual battery that will power the uno board and the other is single battery pack that will power the relay and submersible water pump

So here are the component connections

OLED module connections

Sda to A4

Scl to A5

Gnd to Gnd

Vcc to 5V on Uno

Soil moisture sensor

A0 to A0

Gnd to Gnd

Vcc to 3.3v pin on Uno

Relay Connections

IN to D7

Gnd to Gnd, Vcc to 5v on Uno

Com to positive of battery

Negative of battery and pump to NO of relay

After the circuit is complete we can upload the code to board, Simply copy and paste the below code to IDE and then select proper board type and port and click on upload

Now after the program is done uploading we are good to go and test the circuit before installing electronics on piece of board

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To test if the circuit is working fine simply take a cup of water and then power on the arduino uno board first and then the pump part of power supply

When the sensor is not dipped in water the OLED will show a sad face and DRY status message and now the pump will turn on untill the moisture sensor detects water content

When the sensor detects water the OLED shows watering and then the face becomes happy, and now the pump will stop automaticlly and again after a long time if the sensor detects no moisture the same actions will be repeated

Now since you have checked the circuit we can assemble all this componnets on a piece of cardboard and later place the printed thing on it and asssemble it with all the sensors

The OLED part should be placed in a safe place and i have placed below the funnel, the soil moisture sensor has a dedicated place and you simply place and glue it there

The hose of the pump was new and it was difficult to work on so i made a small hook and placed it inside funnel, Follow the same placements so that the system works without any hassle

The pump that i used earlier lacked performance so that i had to replace it with new one, You can see that in the video

At this point we are almost done with the project, We can now head over to testing this project

Using this is very simple and since you have built this projrct you will already know how to use but still let me explain you a proper step to use this project

You should make a note that this project needs separate power supply and if you use the power from USB the project wont work as expected so i chose uisng a 7.4v battery pack

Power on the swich and now you have the OLED module showing the status and now power on the pump(relay)supply

I filled the funnel(pot part) with soil and planted a plant that will be growing here, Later to the base fill up with water or any nutrient water if you have any

The first time the pump will wet the soil until the sensor is finally wet and stops the relay from water more, Now the OLED face will show happy and now we have a ready system that will take care of itself

You dont need to worry about water overflow since we have a slot to drain that and also from the inside we have a space that will allow circulation of water

This is all about this project, I would like to see you guys building this project and submitting in the i made it section

Happy making and always be in search of making something useful and amazing

If you are not considering watching this working video then you are missing out soo many important things of this project!

Consider checking this working video of automatic watering and you will have a brief idea on how to do a initial setup

Even though after watching this video if you have any questions or any suggestions to add more and more interesting features let me know

That is all about this project, Thanks and happy watering!