Wireless Solar Powered DC Valve Controllers
The Wireless Solar Powered DC Valve Controller (WSPDVC) project is an irrigation control system designed for hobby farms. The system is designed to give small farmers better control over their irrigation watering schedules by automatically turning on their sprinklers based on watering schedule times input into a website while being self powering. The system is split into three main systems, the irrigation nodes, the control system, and the website. The irrigation nodes are powered by solar panels and control the DC solenoid valves that control water flow. The control system hub connects the website to the irrigation nodes and back, passing along watering schedules from the website and any errors from the irrigation nodes. Both nodes have radio boards which allows them to communicate to each other wirelessly. Finally the web server connects to the control system through a Wi-Fi board and allows users to set new watering schedules, delete old ones, and see status updates from the irrigation nodes. This system did not reach it's final stage largely because of two obstacles. The batteries and converter that store energy from the solar panels and give it to the rest of the system needed several iterations for a functioning model, along with the final product having a piece that got so hot that it melted the soldering connecting some of the wires. The second obstacle was the communication between the radio board and Wi-Fi board in the control system. The two boards were set up to communicate via a physical UART connection, however coding the two different boards to synchronize properly required large investments of time to experiment and find what works. We were successful in getting the two to communicate, however the amount of time it took left little for other integration. From these obstacles we have gained experience and insight into what we could have done differently. Perhaps most importantly our group needed strategies to continue progress while a team member was missing. To combat this we have thought of two potential approaches, namely having secondary block champions that can fill in if the primary champion is absent and having an online software development platform that would allow all members to easily check on progress of code and become familiar with it. We have also learned that when creating project requirements, it is important to avoid dependencies that could create bottle necks within the project as the entire team waits for a single function to work.
Artifacts
| Name | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Solar PCB KiCAD Development Files | One of the custom PCBs in the project is a solar charging boost converter. This PCB takes in the voltage output from a solar panel, charges a 2-cell Lithium-Ion battery pack, and boosts the battery pack voltage to 12V. This PCB was developed in KiCAD, and the .zip file contains the schematic, component footprints, PCB design, and gerber files. This Solar PCB is in Revision 1, changes include fixing the MOSFET and PNP BJT footprints to match the transistors used in the design, adjusting some capacitor and resistor values to reduce output oscillations, and redoing the solar charging side of the PCB. | Download |
| Watering Node PCB EagleCAD Development Files | One of the custom PCBs in the project is a base for the Watering Node. This PCB connects to the Solar PCB, holds the long range communication board, and connects to the solenoid driver. This PCB was developed in EagleCAD and includes the schematic and board files. | Download |
| Control Node PCB EagleCAD Development Files | One of the custom PCBs in the project is a base for the Control Node. This PCB holds the short range and long range communicator, connects them and allows for a barrel jack power plug in. This PCB was developed in EagleCAD and includes the schematic and board files. | Download |
| Sending and Receiving code | The main code for the long range communication using the Adafruit feather M0 LoRa. The code makes sure that the radio runs at 915Mhz sends and receives message, and sends the information using UART communication to the short range commination board. | Download |
| Connecting between the website and the main code | The Short Range Communication is connecting to the Website with wifi to get and receive data from the Main node block. Also ESP8266 is the board that connected to the main node with connecting Rx to Tx and Tx to Rx and ground to ground. Also we have the SD card on the data logger board which save the data for month that was sent between the Website and the Main Node. | Download |
| User Guide | This User Guide has all the instructions for new users and experts for installing and operating the system and it has trouble shooting section which helps to avoid any issues us comes up. | Download |
| Enclosure | The Enclosure is what holds the rest of the project and protects the system for water and dust. The enclosure should be able to prevent low velocity water from all angles making it inside. This enclosure was 3d printed so that it would fit behind our solar panel | Download |
| Project Poster | We created a poster to present our project, giving a general overview of the design, requirements, and process. | Download |
| Project Documentation | The project documentation is a full summary of the project, including engineering requirements, system design development, verification evidence, and future recommendations. Serves as a complete, technical overview of the project. | Download |
| Executive Summary | This document provides an overview of the project purpose, design methods, lessons learned, and a project timeline. | Download |
| Project Summary Video | A video giving an overview of the project and it's creation, along with outcomes and future development ideas. | Link |