vulture2600 / ArduinoClimateController

Arduino powered climate controller for use with plant or reptile husbandry.

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Arduino Climate Controller

steve.a.mccluskey@gmail.com

Arduino powered climate controller for use with plant or reptile husbandry.

I developed this project to control the climate of an indoor greenhouse. This controller uses 4 relays to control up to 4 AC devices. In my greenhouse, I used a small grow light, a small ceramic space heater with a fan, a reptile terrarium humidifier, and some 5 inch PC case fans powered by a 12vdc supply. This could easily be used to control a reptile enclosure. Most parameters are changeable via the LCD shield buttons.

User changeable parameters are:

  1. Light on/off time, enable/disable.
  2. Temperature set point, heater enable/disable.
  3. Humidity set point, humidifier enable/disable.
  4. Fan interval, fan enable/disable.
  5. Fan duration.

Use the left/right buttons to scroll thru available menus, up/down buttons to change parameters, and select for enable/disable toggle.

Hardware used: Arudino Mega2560. Dallas OneWire DS18B20 waterproof digital temp sensor. AM2315 I2C digital temperature/humidity sensor. Adafruit PCF8523 I2C real time clock chip. Adafruit RGB LCD shield. Arduino Uno proto shield. Velleman VMA400 4 channel relay board. Various connectors and cables for easy disassembly.

Each of the four channels of the relay are connected to one outlet in the two gang box. Make sure to break the tabs connecting the two outlets so that each outlet can be powered individually. Keep the neutral tabs intact. You will be switching AC loads with this setup. Use at your own risk. Make sure all connections are correct, tight, properly grounded, and sufficient to carry applicable loads. A few safety precautions I took were placing a smoke detector in the same room, remote relay enclosure shutoff via a Wyze Smart Plug, a Wyze Camera that detects the sound of a smoke detector, and remote temperature monitoring. The heater I purchased also has a tip switch, so if it's not sitting level on a hard surface, it will not power on. I had the heater set to medium temp and it worked fine. It's very small and meant for under a desk.

Overall this setup worked perfectly for my application. Your results will vary greatly depending on the size of the room, ventilation, wattage of the heater, proximity of the heater, and climate requirements. None of the code will handle gradients or learn like a smart thermostat will, but considering I had most of these parts laying around, getting something functional was pretty easy. It took about a month to develop and debug.

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Arduino powered climate controller for use with plant or reptile husbandry.


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