Rechargable ECG Tiny

[John CC]

I just put together a prototype circuit board of the ECG tiny which is compact enough to sit on the windowsill monitoring a small pot plant, or even hang on the side of a pot.

It measures soil moisture and turns on a blue LED when the soil moisture gets below the threshold.

While it's a very basic system it could be quite useful in many situations just as an indicator. Plus there are lots of things that can be added or changed such as:

- a potentiometer to change the threshold

- up to 4 LEDs - the drier it is the more turn on

- 2 soil moisture sensors each with a corresponding LED

It could also control an irrigation system but the irrigation would need its own 12v battery (or to find a lower power pump/valve).

The threshold can be changed in the code and uploaded using a USBasp programmer via the ICSP header (the 6 pins at the top).

But the sensitivity can also be altered by changing the depth of the soil moisture probe.

[John CC]

Accidentally sent that (hit ctrl+enter) before finishing the message.

Here are some photos:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_8QvsLqRy5qV2lJaFpfeHo1ekk&usp=sharing

The battery can be charged via a USB cable plugged into the onboard charging module.

It's currently plugged in and running to test it. It'll be interesting to see how long that 18650 battery lasts.