I'm here to share my success with my solar Garden Pi setup
Setup:
2 x 100W Newpowa Polycrystalline Panels
Renogy Wanderer 30A
Optima BlueTop AGM Battery
Raspberry Pi 3B+ running:
- BarkingSpider's SolarShed scripts (connected by RS232 to Wanderer)
- Motioneye camera streaming (connected to Day/Night Pi Camera module)
- OpenSprinkler irrigation controller (using the OpenSprinkler Pi board extension)
- node exporter is shipping to both a on board Prometheus db and a central one on my network
- Since it is also powered by solar and on the edge of wifi, I need to be able to see when it goes down and try to figure out why, so having both records makes it handy
wired the pi to Wanderer like:
RJ12 running through CAT-6 to:
Sysly DB9 RS232 Serial to Terminal
then:
USB to RS232 Adapter with PL2303 Chipset into the USB port of Pi
I am setting up a garden a bit away from my main house, and I didn't want to run electric out there to power a irrigation system. So I started down this path with a couple of panels, a Wanderer (cause they are cheap), and a battery. The idea is the solar setup would power: a Pi for irrigation timer, a garden webcam to monitor for critters/document the garden, the irrigation solenoids to open up, and a 12V on demand water pump that will turn on only when the sprinkler valves are open. I started getting things together and experimenting, but got frustrated with trying to diagnose everything blind. Then I came across this repo and man, I'm in data heaven ?.
Thanks so much for putting this out there for all !! I only had to modify the dashboard for my preferences, but I'm extremely happy with this high tech, but reasonably priced set up. I still have to finish the rest of the setup and I will be reporting back on my progress. The camera is sitting inside the box with the battery and Wanderer, right now, but eventually I'll get it pointing out on the garden for a much better view.
Thanks again!!
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