Solar Pump Controller
Background
After terracing a portion of my property near our lake, I quickly realized the inefficiency of carry sprinkling cans of water to the plants. The wheels started to spin. After some preliminary research, I thought I had found a solution in the Irrigatia SOL-C24. However, after one season the included irrigation hose and drippers became clogged. Attempting to modify the unit with new, larger hoses made the problem worse. Time to build my own solution!Since I already had a 900Mhz wireless network, courtesy of LowPowerLab's super awesome Moteino Gateway, building a solar pump around a Moteino was the logical choice.
Parts List
Basically I wired together a solar panel, solar charge controller, submersible pump, battery, and moteino. Well, it wasn't quite that simple.Here is a summary of all the parts needed to assemble the pump controller. Mounting hardware may very depending how you choose to mount the enclosure the contains the electronics.
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Small Solar Charge Controller
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12v, 1A, submersible pump
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IP65 outdoor enclosure
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PS1270 12v, 7AH standard alarm battery
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IRLB8721 N-Channel MOSFET
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ALS-PT19 Analog Light Sensor
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Three PC817 Optocouplers
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1N4001 Diode
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Two 0.1 ยตF capacitors
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LED
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Various resistors – see circuit diagram
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Various mounting hardware and accessories such as:
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1/2” Tubing and irrigation fittings to suit
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Outdoor rated 18/2
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Garden fence post
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Thin piece of plastic or wood for enclosure backplane
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nylon M3 standoffs
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screws and bolts
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cable glands
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terminal strip
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pump inlet strainer
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Not Discussed
For brevity, I am going to skip over much of the physical assembly. I am also not going to cover assembly of the irrigation tubing. If there is anything you would like to know more about, feel free to ask in the comments below.![]() |
Click to Enlarge |
Solar Pump Circuit
Electrically, the control circuit can be broken into the following functions:- Moteino (not shown)
- Charge Controller
- Battery Monitor
- Ambient Light Monitor
- Trouble Monitor
- Pump Running Monitor
- MOSFET Switch
Prerequisites
The solar pump controller communicates with a Raspberry Pi, running the Moteino Gateway. The gateway creates the 900MHz network and provides the Web UI to monitor and control the various wireless devices.Instructions
- Assemble the circuit shown in the diagram above.
- Load this Solar Pump arduino sketch into the Moteino. Instructions for programming a Moteino are here.
- Create the Solar Pump config on the Moteino Gateway
- Copy solarpump.js to the userMetrics folder on the Raspberry Pi gateway
- Copy icon_solar_pump.png to the www/images folder on the Raspberry Pi gateway
- Restart the Moteino Gateway service
- Mount the equipment inside the cabinet
- Mount the cabinet to its permanent location
- Attach the battery
- CAUTION: The charge controller stated the battery must be attached first, prior to attaching the solar panel.
- Wire the pump and the solar panel
Moteino Gateway UI
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Solar Pump Controller on the Moteino Gateway UI Click To Enlarge |
Button Definitions:
- Off/On - Toggling this off prevents the schedule from running.
- Refresh - This forces the Moteino to immediately report its status
- Run - This immediately turns the pump on (for the scheduled duration)
- Stop - This immediately turns the pump off (until the next scheduled start time)
- Schedule Up - Increases the time between running by 1 hour
- Schedule Down - Decreases the time between running by 1 hour
- Duration Up - Increases the pump runtime duration by 5 minutes
- Duration Down - Decreases the pump runtime duration by 5 minutes
Finished Product
Sample photos of the finished product. Click to Enlarge.
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Control Circuitry + Battery |
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Control Cabinet and Solar Panel Mounted |
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All Finished! |
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