soil sensor
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Developing Better Probes for Capacitive Soil Moisture Sensors
Previous post described our reasons for developing Dielectric Soil Moisture Sensor. Here we would like to share some thoughts about the probes of these sensors. In general, any two metal bars or PCB traces will work with the same oscillator. What will change with each setup is the probe’s capacitance and sensitivity. The sensitivity can be balanced to desired level with an analog OpAmp amplifier. One thing is for sure: it is worth to build a development platform like we…
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How to make a Capacitive Soil Sensor Oscillator
Our Automatic Microgreens Stand needs a lot of electronic parts, among them a Soil Moisture Sensor. When growing anything; soil, water, light and controlling their quantity becomes very important for good results. There is a lot of information and sensor products available on Internet. Majority of them are inexpensive sensors based on resistive measurement of the soil. These are not cutting it for us – they are not corrosion proof and more importantly, their measurement is soil type dependent. We…