Dear friends welcome back!
This is Nick from educ8s.tv and today we are
going to see how to use the very interesting
soil moisture sensor with an Arduino board.
Let’s get started.
I wanted to use this sensor for a long time
since I find it quite an interesting one.
The sensor is very cheap, it costs around
2$. You can find a link for the sensor in
the description of the video. The sensor can
measure the levels of moisture in the soil.
So it can be extremely useful if you want
to monitor the soil moisture of your plants
or automate the watering procedure. Let’s
see the project we are going to build today.
I have one cup in front of me with dry soil.
If I place the sensor in the cup we can read
a low soil moisture value at the Nokia 5110
display. If I pour some water in the cup you
can clearly see that the moisture levels rise.
The project is working fine and we can visually
check the moisture levels of the soil. Of
course this is just a demonstration of the
sensor, I am going to build more useful projects
in the future with this sensor. Let’s now
see how to build this simple project.
The two large exposed pads function as probes
for the sensor. The more water in the soil,
the better the conductivity between the pads.
That results in a lower resistance. The sensor
is an analog one, so in the analog output
we get a voltage. As the soil gets drier we
get more voltage at the analog output since
the resistance between the probes gets higher.
We can set a threshold in order to enable
the digital output at a certain moisture level
using this potentiometer. But in this video
we are using only the analog output of the
sensor module.
The connection to Arduino is extremely easy.
We connect GND to Arduino Ground and Vcc to
Arduino 5V. Next we connect the analog output
of the sensor to Analog pin 0 of the Arduino
board. Then all we have to do is to connect
the Nokia 5110 LCD display. Watch the detailed
tutorial I have prepared on how to connect
the Nokia 5110 display to Arduino, it is very
easy. After everything is connected, we power
up Arduino, and as you can see after a few
seconds in the display we can see the moisture
value of the soil. Now let’s see the code
of the project.
I have prepared two sketches for you. The
first one does not use the Nokia 5110 lcd
display, it just prints at the serial monitor
the moisture levels from the sensor. The second
sketch uses the Nokia 5110 lcd display and
it prints out the value in percent. The code
is very simple. We read the analogue value
from the sensor and we convert it to a value
from 0 to 100 where 0 is dry soil and 100
is the wet soil. Then all we do is to print
that value on the Nokia display. As always
you can find the code of the project in the
description of the video.
That’s how easy it is to measure the moisture
of the soil using this sensor. It is a very
interesting sensor, and very useful as well.
I am going to build many projects around this
sensor in the future so stay tuned!
Before we go I would like to show you the
latest Android game I have developed. It is
a Quiz Game and it is called Quiz of Knowledge.
It contains thousands of questions divided
into 16 categories and it is completely free.
It is now live on Google Play Store and it
supports 5 languages, English, Spanish, German,
Greek and Indonesian. If you like quiz games
I am sure you will enjoy this. If you wish
to download it you can click here or in a
link in the description of the video. Thank
you very much for your support!
If this is your first time here, I would love
to have you subscribed. In this channel I
post videos about DIY projects every Saturday.
I love making things and I believe that anyone
can make things, anyone can become a maker.
That’s why I created this channel, in order
to share my knowledge with the community and
learn from the community. I hope you will
join us. Until next Saturday, Watch, Learn,
Build!
