Hi and welcome to a new section in this course, what we do in this section is we'll start the implementation
of the terrorism controller and we'll do that step by step.
That is, as usual with my courses will create a series of prototypes and in each prototype or implement
and test a new set of functionalities of capabilities.
So this is the first step towards building our terrarium controller.
I've decided that instead of going straight into the PCB will stop, we start our prototyping process
the usual way on a breadboard.
You could go and start working on a small or a mini breadboard.
The circuit here so you can see is fairly small.
But keep in mind that things are going to get a little bit more complicated and will be adding components
on the breadboard.
So this is probably not going to be enough.
You can and I have actually done so using multiple breadboard, multiple mini inputs, so you can put
them side by side and then attach components on them and join them together using jumper wires.
Or you can instead go for a larger Bridport like this.
Also, what I like about this breadboard is that it's got the banana connectors for external power on
the side in the first few iterations.
Are we powering my motor, which represents the pump through these banana clips?
And then why is it go to my benchtop power supply?
And then of course I'm powering the E.S.P 32 via USB, so that allows me to have two rails.
This one is going to be for the motor power and then the rest of the rails to dedicated to sensors in
the spirit to itself.
So in this first lecture of the first section, I just want to show you a review of what it is that
we are targeting, what it is that will implement by the end of this section, both in terms of the
hardware and the software and then in the remaining lectures in this section will do the implementation
and testing.
So hardware wise, what we have just from a high level perspective and I'll show you the actual schematic
in the next lecture, it's just a very, very basic features that this terrorism controller without
these features would not be a terrorism controller.
We can add more capabilities later, but this is where it starts.
So I've got the motor here, which represents the actual pump.
I did not want to have a jug of water like a water reservoir with soil in a jar with soil and the plant
in it on my bench as I'm trying to figure out the various electrical connections and the nutrient flow.
So instead of having the actual water pump submerged in water, I've got a five old Holby modem in terms
of the soil sensor, again, another essential component of the terrarium controller, so that the soil
since the soil humidity sensor looks like this.
And again, for this to work properly, it needs to be inside soil.
And I thought that this is just a simple voltage divider, really, this module here, simply an amplifier.
So I could easily simulate, in a way, the soil humidity sensor using this potential mirror.
So when the time comes and I'm ready to test the real thing, I will simply remove the potential and
replace it with the soil humidity sensor.
It's got for pinch here.
But really the three pins are the ones that are used.
I'll be using the analog pin on the left side, which plays the role of the consumer, a middle pin,
and then you've got ground in five or three point three boards for the ease with the two of power.
So put it aside for now.
Put the consumer back in right there.
And I've got the motor control circuit here, which is based on the tip one twenty two and that's about
it.
Now, as I said, I'm going to show you the circuit diagram in the next lecture in terms of the software
that all that we're going to do is to build a node red flow, which will present us with this dashboard
so he can see, yes, I'm moving the nub of the potential mirror the soil humidity indicator changes
accordingly.
And back to zero gets to the range near zero to one thousand and twenty three, because that's the resolution
of the unlooked input pin that I will implement in my sketch.
I also have a switch here so that I could manually control the motor and I can turn it on or off.
But of course, in my flow, I'm going to have a function here that will trigger the pump on its own.
If the soil humidity, the real value of the solar humidity goes above a certain value.
And I'm going to decide what the value is by playing around with it, with the geometry.
All right.
So that gives you an introduction of what it is that we'll be doing in this section.
So let's move on to the next lecture and start building it.