Okay so listen, last Tuesday my basil plants looked seriously sad. Like, proper dead. I watered them tons but didn’t help. Felt bad, man. That’s when I remembered my dusty Raspberry Pi 4 kit sitting under the TV. And that cheap sensor thingy… a soil moisture sensor? Yeah, that. Said screw it, let’s build something.
The Hunt for Working Bits
First problem? Finding all the parts. My sensor looks like a cheap fork made of plastic. Had to dig through cables to find the right wires. Needed male-to-female jumpers. Found three red, one black. Good enough.
Plugged the Pi into my old laptop, screen suddenly went all banana sandwich. Forgot how fiddly setting it up is. Needed to flash Raspbian Lite onto the SD card again. Took forever, my laptop’s a dinosaur. Got it breathing though.
Stabbing Wires Together
Right, wiring time. Looked scary. My sensor’s got four prongs:
Brown wire – Label said Ground. Shoved that into the Pi’s Pin 6 (GND).
Red wire – Power (VCC). Jammed that into Pin 1 (3v3).
Yellow wire – Actual data? (DO). Totally ignored that for now.
Blue wire – This seemed important. Said A0. Plugged this into Pin 40. Why? Saw it online somewhere.
Crossed my fingers it wouldn’t pop. Wires looked messy as heck.
Code Nightmares (Mostly Mine)
Time for the scary bit: software. Opened terminal, felt like a hacker movie. Installed some stuff:
First did sudo apt-get update. Wait, wait, wait.
Then sudo apt-get install python3-dev. More waiting.
Finally sudo pip3 install *. Held breath.
Opened a Python file. Typed something like:
import * as GPIO
from time import sleep
moisture_pin = 21
Then I hit a wall. Reading that analog sensor needs extra bits? Big headache. Had to order this tiny ADC converter thing online. Waited days! Felt like years. Hooked that mess up too.
Sticking it in Dirt (Finally!)
Got it plugged together, converter sitting awkwardly on wires. Stuck the sensor fork deep into my basil’s pot. Ran the script:
reading = read_analog(moisture_pin)
print("Moisture Level:", reading)
Number popped up: 975. Bone dry! No wonder my plants looked fried. Watered it. Checked again: 450. Much better number.
My Pi started getting really warm though. Tiny fan sounded angry. Had to tape the sensor wires down so they didn’t wiggle loose and crash everything.
Why Bother? What Stuck?
Honestly? Learned a bunch screwing around:
No cloud needed! This little box talks just fine by itself.
It’s cheap. Cheaper than killing basil plants every month.
Seeing the actual number makes watering less guesswork.
Endless tweaking fun. Maybe add a pump next? Or email alerts? (Though the pump idea scares me…).
The setup feels janky, sure. Wires everywhere. Pi sometimes cooks itself. But that little number telling me the dirt’s happy? Worth it.
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