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A comment on Open Source Farming Robot. Parent comment

Re:Open Source Farming Robot by rmason on Sunday August 04, 2024 @03:05AM (#41151640)
The best way to water a garden is drip irrigation. You do have to manually lay the tubing and then in the fall roll it up. But there are farmers doing it in large fields so a small garden should be possible. Once everything is hooked up it can be pretty well automated. Home Depot now in some stores has drip irrigation supplies.

https://www.dripworks.com/drip-irrigation

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Re:Open Source Farming Robot by goeiedaggoeie on Sunday August 04, 2024 @08:39AM (#41153145)
you don't need anything fancy for drip, a small hole in the pipe and a timer on your pump is is generally enough. If you really want to go fancy you can isolate the system and use moisture sensors, which are cheap.
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Re:Open Source Farming Robot by 6gvONxR4sf7o on Sunday August 04, 2024 @01:13PM (#41154917)
Are moisture sensors any good? I always read about how useless they are, but maybe that’s just a certain type? What would you recommend?
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Re:Open Source Farming Robot by throwup238 on Sunday August 04, 2024 @02:05PM (#41155268)
Moisture sensors that measure conductivity are pretty useless unless frequently recalibrated but time domain reflectometry sensors are much better and more accurate.

I use the VH400 from Vegetronix: https://www.vegetronix.com/Products/VH400/

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Re:Open Source Farming Robot by goeiedaggoeie on Monday August 05, 2024 @04:37PM (#41165357)
Yes, conductivity is pretty useless over time.
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