Mega plus board with ESP 32

@dastardlydoug How many ins and outs do you need? BTW, the esp32 has lots, over a dozen. see HERE Only a few of the newer arduino boards work in the cloud, see attached screen snap. I am not familiar with them all but the few I know have no advantage over the ESP32. What is your pin count, I would guess between 6 and 12 max. If you connect your ISP to a second router then of course you greatly minimize your security risk.

Posted by: @inq

Posted by: @dastardlydoug

I just want to make my plants get watered from a holding tank when they get to a certain % of moisture...

I don't have much experience using the IoT cloud services.  The few tutorials I've worked through seem like they make it pretty simple to implement.  I prefer to keep the ESP servers inside my LAN and access the dashboards on any other devices on my LAN.  I don't really have a need to monitor/control them from afar.

What type soil moisture sensors are you using?  You mentioned you don't like one type.

https://www.amazon.com/UMLIFE-Capacitive-Moisture-4Channel-Detection/dp/B093V62VXD

That's an almost perfect example of what I'm trying to setup. Only thing missing is to be able to monitor data remotely. 👍 

I only got the 8 channel 5v relay system for future brain farts. 😊 

@dastardlydoug LOL, what is the iron for? I see an SSR, that is needed if you want solid state AC relays instead of mechanical relays prone to failure in high inductance scenarios. The middle case is an oversize power supply, a USB wall wart is all you need, and the last looks like a display that you are replacing with a cloud GUI.

@inq

Which Kindle book was that example from?

@inq That image is from amazon so doesn't work, wrap the link in quotes next time.

@dastardlydoug Don't assume you need 8 pins for that relay cluster, there are ways to reduce that to 2 or 3 pins.

Posted by: @zander

@dastardlydoug LOL, what is the iron for? I see an SSR, that is needed if you want solid state AC relays instead of mechanical relays prone to failure in high inductance scenarios. The middle case is an oversize power supply, a USB wall wart is all you need, and the last looks like a display that you are replacing with a cloud GUI.

Hehehe~ That's a low budget flow soldering system. 🤣 

Point being, I don't want to have to make a PCB board from scratch to get this done.

@dastardlydoug It's not, that is what happens if you post an amazon link, some kind of bug. Try using a URL shortener or wrap in quotes.

@dastardlydoug For that project, all you need is some perf board and I would mount the esp32 on connectors shown in picture so you can take the board off for programming. You will also need connectors for the wiring etc. Not a PCB, just a perf board.

Posted by: @zander

@dastardlydoug For that project, all you need is some perf board and I would mount the esp32 on connectors shown in picture so you can take the board off for programming. You will also need connectors for the wiring etc. Not a PCB, just a perf board.

 

Yupper... Got all of that stuff. Even those fancy-pants crimpers 😆 

@dastardlydoug These are not something to be crimped, they get soldered into a perf/pcb board then the esp32 can be inserted and removed for programming.

This is the MEGA I bought with a sensor shield.

Still not sure how I'm going to use it all, but I've got pretty much anything I'm going to need. 😆 

Posted by: @dastardlydoug

From what I can see, the ESP32 has too few of anything, and just want it to make data available in the cloud.

Guys, I'm having trouble keeping up.  My Internet is running below 50 Kbits/sec.  After my last post, it took over 5 minutes to refresh the page.  Now I see you are on page 2 while I'm still processing through page 1.  I apologize if I ask something or answer something you've already covered, but you'll be on page 10 if I even look at page 2. 😆  

If I assume you have 8 relays to do 8 zones... I see why you might feel the ESP's can't cut it.  8 pins to measure moisture, 8 other pins to trigger relays.

Bare in mind, I'm a cookbook hardware guy... I can cook a mean project in a monkey see, monkey do kind of way.  Maybe a hardware type will chime in and suggest a better method.  On your other thread, someone mentioned using a Shift Register.  As I understand it, you hook up all your 8 sensors to the shift register and using just a couple of pins you tell the Shift Register to switch to sensor 1, query the sensor, then switch to the next sensor... so forth and so on... round-robin.

As for the relays... do you know if you have an I2C relay board or are all 8 individually triggered?

@dastardlydoug But it isn't supported in the cloud. I will have to look up what a sensor shield is. Ok, got it, but not relevant since the mega isn't supported in the cloud. Again here is your choices plus esp8266 and esp32.

BTW, IT 101, NEVER buy the hardware first. Requirement, Analysis, Design then determine best hardware match. From what you have told us so far, it's just relays and a few sensors possibly on I2C bus. The last company I worked for before starting my own blew 1 Billion due to buying hardware first.

@inq Correct, 2 or 3 pins can control a LOT of relays. Wait until you find out he already bought the hardware and it isn't cloud supported.