June 23, 2018
This second installment on Indoor Agriculture focuses on building an Ultrasonic Fogger system which runs on a schedule. Once again, we will use an Arduino Uno to run a relay, and use a Raspberry Pi Zero W to manage cycles via serial connection.
Additionally, it deals with creating a CAD model of the machine we’re prototyping. The Ultrasonic Fogger needs to be submerged so we might as well design a nice reservoir.
Item | Price |
---|---|
Ultrasonic Fogger | $ 18.99 |
Build the circuit as illustrated by the following diagram.
Initially I tried using just the ultrasonic transducer but it turns out that they need to be driven. Who knew? I switched to using a garden decoration fogger which takes an external power source. These can’t be driven 24/7 so we will need to turn it off for a period of time. Good thing we bought a 2-channel relay.
NOTE: Don’t run this without having the ultrasonic fogger submerged.
Lets take this opportunity to create a CAD model of the machine. We need a way to mount the LED lights, an electronics enclosure, and water reservoir. I took me several iterations create a model which could minimize the cost of 3d printing. I had to minimize surface area and max component dimensions.
ultrasonic_fogger.ino
program onto the Arduino Uno.README.md
instructions to setup the python software on the Raspberry Pi Zero W.ultrasonic_fogger.py
program2
to turn the ultrasonic fogger off3
to turn the ultrasonic fogger onULTRASONIC_FOGGER_ON_MINUTES
, ULTRASONIC_FOGGER_OFF_MINUTES
, variables in the .env
file.ultrasonic_fogger_schedule.py
program.Alright, done. It took awhile because I didn’t designed the machine first and inadequately researched interfacing the ultrasonic fogger. Next, I need to:
Stay tuned for part 3.
Written by Peter Chau, a Canadian Software Engineer building AIs, APIs, UIs, and robots.