Automatic Drip Irrigation System for small plants

 Let's show our love for trees and plants with help of some Internet of Things.

When we go out for 10-15 days, we always have to think about what to do for the watering of our household plants. What if we can water our plants automatically at a scheduled time or remotely? 

Let's see how we can make an automatic Drip Irrigation system to do that:

We will need the below items to make it:

1. Drip irrigation kit according to the number of plants.
2. a submersible pump used in coolers or fountains.
3. water cane of suitable size.
4. ESP32 or ESP8266 board.
5. Relay control board.
6. 5V power supply.
7. wifi router.

some items were already available, remaining we can order online.

first, we need to arrange a drip irrigation kit as per plants and water level of the water cane, connect it with the water pump placed in the water cane. manually test the pump and see if it is watering plants? note the timings required for watering. 

second, set up the ESP wifi module with a relay control board and test your program separately with the relay module only. The program can vary from a simple Arduino based program to some complex program. I have programmed it with the schedule as well as remotely operatable with help of google firebase.

after some manual testing, it's time to integrate parts to make a whole system. we can make use of any box for an enclosure, I used the box of water pump for the case. now we are able to control it through firebase from anywhere with an internet connection and it is also operating itself based on schedule and reports the information in a real-time database so that we can see the logs of its operating condition. we can see in the below figure that shows the report of its operating, current status, power-on time, and also the option to control it remotely. 

Where the water source tap is easily available, we can use the solenoid valve with the tap instead of the water pump. we can also use ready-made smart plugs and/or timers based on our plant arrangement and availability.

This is also helpful in the nursery and terrace garden. We need to set up once and it will do watering daily for you. at a big level can be made for big size trees as well and in farms also.

I used R.o. wastewater in the water cane so it also helps save water.