VAtransplant
Active member
Yeah, if you want an out of the box solution with tech support.. arduino may not be your best bet. However, the documentation is *incredible*. Tons of example codes are included with the free development tool (basically just looks like notepad with a few buttons). The forums are also insanely popular, lots of posts with people doing grow controllers, aquarium controllers, snow plow robots, basically anything you can think of.
Since it takes a geek to kind of get in to this thing, a lot of people are passionate about helping you solve problems. Most other programming languages (like writing for iOS), you ask a question and you get a bunch of elitists and people who provide minimal information assuming you can fill in the rest. Arduino community rocks.
The code snippet I included really isn't that scary when you think about it. The top half is all static, you just slap that in the top of your file and leave it there. The only thing you have to really focus on was the actual temp getting function:
float currentTemp = sensors.getTempFByIndex(0);
if(currentTemp > maxTemp) {
digitalWrite(WATERPUMP, HIGH);
digitalWrite(FAN, HIGH);
} else if (currentTemp < (maxTemp - 5)) {
digitalWrite(WATERPUMP, LOW);
digitalWrite(FAN, LOW);
}
So you're just using < and > to determine if your current temperature is higher or lower than the defined set maximum. Digital write simply means tell a pin to turn on, which flips the relay, flips your fan.
You could even throw some water sensors around and detect if you've had a leak. If yes, use digitalwrite to turn off your pump and alert you. The potential is huge, since you can have it turn on a simple LED to alarm you, turn on a flashing red light like in a nuclear silo (hah), or with a little practice send you a text message or alert your phone via a simple app.
If you ever want to get back in to coding and want to start with something simple, like a 4 sensor temperature and humidity program that controls fans, pumps, and humidifer (if you have one), let me know. Can basically just send you the contents of my Amazon shopping cart from one of my previous orders, all prime shipping, cheap as hell. If you get the same stuff I can take a picture of my arduino, you can wire it up the same exact way, and run the same code that I could send you. Just about anyone could pick this up fast
You really don't have to worry much about errors in your code tanking your grow. A couple lines of code here and there provide safety, redundancy, and the intelligence to handle anything that could go wrong. Shit, there's even an arduino smoke and poisonous gas sensor that's $7. I'm also in CO, so if you ever got stumped I'm not far away.
Since it takes a geek to kind of get in to this thing, a lot of people are passionate about helping you solve problems. Most other programming languages (like writing for iOS), you ask a question and you get a bunch of elitists and people who provide minimal information assuming you can fill in the rest. Arduino community rocks.
The code snippet I included really isn't that scary when you think about it. The top half is all static, you just slap that in the top of your file and leave it there. The only thing you have to really focus on was the actual temp getting function:
float currentTemp = sensors.getTempFByIndex(0);
if(currentTemp > maxTemp) {
digitalWrite(WATERPUMP, HIGH);
digitalWrite(FAN, HIGH);
} else if (currentTemp < (maxTemp - 5)) {
digitalWrite(WATERPUMP, LOW);
digitalWrite(FAN, LOW);
}
So you're just using < and > to determine if your current temperature is higher or lower than the defined set maximum. Digital write simply means tell a pin to turn on, which flips the relay, flips your fan.
You could even throw some water sensors around and detect if you've had a leak. If yes, use digitalwrite to turn off your pump and alert you. The potential is huge, since you can have it turn on a simple LED to alarm you, turn on a flashing red light like in a nuclear silo (hah), or with a little practice send you a text message or alert your phone via a simple app.
If you ever want to get back in to coding and want to start with something simple, like a 4 sensor temperature and humidity program that controls fans, pumps, and humidifer (if you have one), let me know. Can basically just send you the contents of my Amazon shopping cart from one of my previous orders, all prime shipping, cheap as hell. If you get the same stuff I can take a picture of my arduino, you can wire it up the same exact way, and run the same code that I could send you. Just about anyone could pick this up fast
You really don't have to worry much about errors in your code tanking your grow. A couple lines of code here and there provide safety, redundancy, and the intelligence to handle anything that could go wrong. Shit, there's even an arduino smoke and poisonous gas sensor that's $7. I'm also in CO, so if you ever got stumped I'm not far away.
