ESP-01 and Soil Moisture Sensor?!

[beic]

Hi there,

I want to ask you, is there any chance to connect the simple Soil Moisture Sensor to the ESP-01 (ESP Easy R120) somehow?

Thank you!

[Drum]

I believe the sensor you are looking at would not work on an ESP-01. There is no ADC pin exposed on the ESP-01 from what I can find, and from what I remember looking into this sensor, it uses resistance across the 2 sides and the 3 pins are Ground, Vin and Vout (or something like it) and that would go to the ADC pin to measure how much voltage is able to pass through the soil. There is lots of information on the internet on these. they are okay to play with but I don't think they would work well long term. Apparently corrosion is a big problem. They are cheap though. You can probably connect a really small wire to the ADC pin on the chip, but it is not easy and you could ruin the board in the process.

You could use it on an ESP-12, which doesn't cost much more than the ESP-01, and an adapter plate to make it more user friendly is also really cheap. It takes longer, but it is hard to beat the prices from Aliexpress on things like this. If you are just getting started, you might look at one of the development boards, nodeMCU, wemos, I like the Adafruit feather huzzah, it is small and has built in lipo charger (battery is extra of course), they all cost more, but generally less problems and there is a lot of information on them, and for the most part you don't run into hardware issues. The NodeMcu does have some added circuitry on the ADC pin which you would have to look at, I don't remember what it does.

The ADC pin on the ESP8266 is limited to 1V max, but the board may have an adjustable output, you would have to figure that out. I have seen a lot of information on this sensor on the internet. Google ESP8266 moisture sensor.

[beic]

I believe the sensor you are looking at would not work on an ESP-01. There is no ADC pin exposed on the ESP-01 from what I can find, and from what I remember looking into this sensor, it uses resistance across the 2 sides and the 3 pins are Ground, Vin and Vout (or something like it) and that would go to the ADC pin to measure how much voltage is able to pass through the soil. There is lots of information on the internet on these. they are okay to play with but I don't think they would work well long term. Apparently corrosion is a big problem. They are cheap though. You can probably connect a really small wire to the ADC pin on the chip, but it is not easy and you could ruin the board in the process.

You could use it on an ESP-12, which doesn't cost much more than the ESP-01, and an adapter plate to make it more user friendly is also really cheap. It takes longer, but it is hard to beat the prices from Aliexpress on things like this. If you are just getting started, you might look at one of the development boards, nodeMCU, wemos, I like the Adafruit feather huzzah, it is small and has built in lipo charger (battery is extra of course), they all cost more, but generally less problems and there is a lot of information on them, and for the most part you don't run into hardware issues. The NodeMcu does have some added circuitry on the ADC pin which you would have to look at, I don't remember what it does.

The ADC pin on the ESP8266 is limited to 1V max, but the board may have an adjustable output, you would have to figure that out. I have seen a lot of information on this sensor on the internet. Google ESP8266 moisture sensor.

Thank you for your fast answer!

And yes, I tough the same so for the ESP-01 and ESP-01S, the price differences between ESP-01 and 07, 12 are like $0.20, so it's not a problem.

Also searched for the ESP8266 moisture sensor for ESP-01 on Google, but did't find any simple schematics.

But, if we are here, can you tell me, is there any i2c driven Soil Moisture Sensor known?, because I didn't find nothing over Google.

EDIT: Found something interesting for ESP-07 and ESP12, but I don't know it will work with ESPEasy...

[Drum]

The only reasonable one I have seen is on on Tindie
https://www.tindie.com/products/miceuz/ ... re-sensor/

But also have a look at
https://www.tindie.com/products/AprilBr ... rod_search

Both are capacitive sensors.

I have some of the second one, they work, but I am still trying to get the plugin to work correctly. It is not in the main stream firmware, but neither are. There are also issues with the dht-11 plugin and the soil moisture plug being active at the same time. It would be nice but I don't need the dht-11. I can get the plugin to work correctly over time, but since I want it to wake up and take readings every 10 to 20 minutes, I need the first reading to work, which is always almost exactly the same regardless of if it is wet or dry. They should have a new model out soon with a better temperature sensor and easier access to all the pins. I think this is what they are looking at for the new one - https://hackaday.io/project/12843-esp-s ... sensor-v21. just a heads up, the connector for programming is smaller than the 2.54mm pins. It was a bit of a pain without their programmer, but since I am using ESPEasy, I only have to do that one time for each.

[beic]

The only reasonable one I have seen is on on Tindie
https://www.tindie.com/products/miceuz/ ... re-sensor/

But also have a look at
https://www.tindie.com/products/AprilBr ... rod_search

Both are capacitive sensors.

I have some of the second one, they work, but I am still trying to get the plugin to work correctly. It is not in the main stream firmware, but neither are. There are also issues with the dht-11 plugin and the soil moisture plug being active at the same time. It would be nice but I don't need the dht-11. I can get the plugin to work correctly over time, but since I want it to wake up and take readings every 10 to 20 minutes, I need the first reading to work, which is always almost exactly the same regardless of if it is wet or dry. They should have a new model out soon with a better temperature sensor and easier access to all the pins. I think this is what they are looking at for the new one - https://hackaday.io/project/12843-esp-s ... sensor-v21. just a heads up, the connector for programming is smaller than the 2.54mm pins. It was a bit of a pain without their programmer, but since I am using ESPEasy, I only have to do that one time for each.

Oh, yes, that one on the Tindie, I found that a few days ago! Nice looking, but don't know how can be combined with ESPEasy to send data to the Domoticz.

Same here, wanna stick with ESPEasy, but how I see there is not much of documentation on the WIKI also the latest firmware R120 is outdated seeing from Github sources.

My bottom line is that I wanted to use all sensors, display and relay trough i2c protocol and ESP-01, here is my first hybrid prototype.

[Ton_vN]

Looking for a similar setup with D1-WeMOS as processor.
Summary of my findings for sensors available through AliExpress.

[uxhamby]

Hi,

I recently bought 4 cheap ESP01 modules off eBay #131750872946 (~$2 ea CAD) as an initial foray into wifi micro controllers.

1 was DOA pure and simple.

1 appeared to work with the AT codes but showed no ability to see wifi around it nor be an AP.

1 appeared to work with the AT codes and could see & join my wifi. It took the ESPeasy code OK, but never put up the AP ESP_0 and won't talk to me at all now.

1 appeared to work with the AT codes and wifi but wouldn't take the ESPeasy firmware code w/o erroring part way through the d/l.

I am not particularly accident prone so I am forced to consider that I got the sweepings off the floor at Espressif.

What are other ppls experiences with the ESP01 from china via Ebay?


Thanks,

Brian H.

[costo]

My experience with the esp01 is that you absolutely need to solder a tantalium or ceramic capacitor of a few microfarad right over the Vcc/Ground connection on the module itself to make this board stable.



When the ESP module is plugged into a breadboard and the capacitor is connected on the breadboard chances are great that wifi is not working right.

[nornode]

Esp01's are tricky.
But none of mine has ever been DOA.
I have had millions of problems flashing firmware to them though (and still have sometimes).

What programming rigg do you use?
Make sure when you program that you short the right pins. + when running it that you also short the pins to get stability.

[data]

Here's this I2C soil moisture sensor, available also from AliExpress for US$ 7.
http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/vrfY3rB

Now, this caught my attention. The CPU in use is an Attiny44 with 4kB.

So instead of attaching this device via I2C why not add a 433MHz transmitter and
flash some new code to this device which will transmit moisture level every 30min...
Then it can be used with RFLink. Or has anyone done this already?

[toffel969]

Looking for a similar setup with D1-WeMOS as processor.
Summary of my findings for sensors available through AliExpress.

I have this one running with a NodeMCU. Voltage devider should also be there on Wemos Analog in, so this should work

[Shardan]

Ebay ESP01:

I own several ESP-01 and ESP 01S from Ebay and AliExpress, i never had a DOA.
I mostly use them for Display driving and the IR-TX / RX functions.

Most problems I ran into resulted from unreliable cabling and power supply.

Biggest Problem: Always use an external 3,3V supply! The 3,3V supplies from the programming adapters
usually do not have enough power to reliably flash the ESP's.

Best solution in my opinion:
I'm using a PCB with a 3,3V Regulator (LF-33CV) and capacitors directly under the ESP-Socket,
and pin headers on the PCB for the programming adapter.

Regards
Shardan