[werk_ag]

Finally I changed my Soil Moisture / Temperature and Leaf Wetness sensors to a definitive location in the lawn. For now, the soil moisture readings are a bit high, to compact the soil I used a lot of water.

Some pictures of the installation:


A rubber hose was used to protect the cables
   

VH400 sensor (the plastic ring is just to protect the top of the sensor, and it is not deeply buried in the ground).
   

Soil / Leaf interface attached to my TX unit1 (this unit is not used for wind instruments).
   

Analog Input 1: VH400; Analog Input 2: Decagon Leaf Wetness
Soil Temperature sensor: 1Wire Dallas DS18B20
   

Very soon the data from soil moisture sensor will be used by my homemade irrigation control system, which receive the data from the main RX unit, as happen with the Wireless Display units

[zitoune]

Wow it looks great Werk!

Where did you put the leaf wetness sensor?

Are you measuring the humidity level up to a certain threshold that is going to pilot your watering system?

Thanks.

Finally I changed my Soil Moisture / Temperature and Leaf Wetness sensors to a definitive location in the lawn. For now, the soil moisture readings are a bit high, to compact the soil I used a lot of water.

Some pictures of the installation:


A rubber hose was used to protect the cables


VH400 sensor (the plastic ring is just to protect the top of the sensor, and it is not deeply buried in the ground).


Soil / Leaf interface attached to my TX unit1 (this unit is not used for wind instruments).


Analog Input 1: VH400; Analog Input 2: Decagon Leaf Wetness
Soil Temperature sensor: 1Wire Dallas DS18B20


Very soon the data from soil moisture sensor will be used by my homemade irrigation control system, which receive the data from the main RX unit, as happen with the Wireless Display units

[werk_ag]

Wow it looks great Werk!

Where did you put the leaf wetness sensor?

Are you measuring the humidity level up to a certain threshold that is going to pilot your watering system?

Thanks.

Hi,

I forgot to take some pictures of the wetness sensor. I placed it on a short pole, more or less 50cm above the ground level. It is so sensible that it detect the minimal presence of dew very well.
I'm not sure if have placed it correctly, or if there is a better way, but it seems to do the task.

Currently my watering system is already controlled by the rain data received from the weather station. The watering system computes a rolling average of rainfall from the last 7 days, and if the computed value is greater than a predefined threshold the watering is disabled. The system also disable the watering cycle programed for today, if today rainfail is greater than another predefined threshold.
What I'm planning now is, use the data from the soil moisture sensor and rain, to create a more complex condition to enable or disable the watering of the lawn.

[Wizza]

Nice work Werk... Lets know how it runs over time, and how you get on...

Mark R

[uncle_bob]

Looks great and tidy too!

[JT118]

Here is mine, installed on TX1 (TX0 with rain gauge, anemometer etc)

Needs a lot of tidying up , but it is working. (NB picture shows Leaf wetness and soil moisture sensors incorrectly connected, Soil Moisture should be Ground, bare; 5V, Red and ADC1, Black. Leaf Wetness should be Ground, Bare; 5V, White; and ADC2, Red.)

   

   

As near as possible to get to this:

   

===================================
Soil Temp; 4 of 1Wire Dallas DS18B20 sensors buried at:

-1 metre
-30cm
-10cm
and at Grass level

+ 1 SHT10 in Radiation shield at + 1m above grass.

Analog Input 1: VH400 soil Moisture

Analog Input 2: Decagon Leaf Wetness

All working and reporting as required.

[werk_ag]

Hi JT118,

Thanks for posting the pictures of your installation. Nice work. I like the idea of the temperature sensor 1m above ground. Unfortunately we don't have the memory needed to implement Evapotranspiration calculations. It's a pity, as we already have all the required data.

You ever had a high reading for Leaf Wetness? Something like 254 or 255.
I'm trying to know if this is a bug in the RX software or something else. This occasionally happens with Cumulus 1, but until now never happened with Cumulus MX.

Edited: I think I found the bug... let's see what happening on the next days.

[JT118]

I have not noticed a high reading yet. Only had this Soil / Leaf board running for a few days though.

An interesting write up on the VH400

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4239887/

[werk_ag]

Hi JT118

Indeed, it have very useful info.
Since the recent change of the location of my soil moisture sensor, I'm not very happy with the readings, they are clearly too high, which reveal that the curves provided by the sensor manufacturer do not apply to all kinds of soil.
The soil of my lawn is mostly sand, if I dig some cm, it shows signs of moisture, but clearly that 50 to 60% of the volume is not water, as read by the sensor using the manufacturer curves to convert the voltage reading to VWC.

I will try to play with the formula referred in the document you published, however for use it I think I should be able to determine the asymptote value for my soil. (The asymptote is the final limiting value attained by the response variable VWC). Despite I understand the mathematical concept of asymptote, I'm not sure if I have fully understood what the authors mean to say with this.

[zitoune]

Here is mine, installed on TX1 (TX0 with rain gauge, anemometer etc)

Very cool JT118 !!

How did you connect the power to this TX1? You have a cable buried in the ground?

I am jealous, so I'll start building my interface as well very soon