PiPlanter | Graphing With PHP

Again, short post. This php code:

will produce this graph:

I learned this using this resource:

http://phpmaster.com/charting-with-pchart/

PiPlanter | Interfacing an ADC, Python, and MySQL [Documentation]

As this post is more of an update, I won’t be adding any explanations, just giving the python code.

This will read 3 values from the adc and put them into the database “adc_database”. It will put them in the table “adc_input_data_4” in the columns “Channel_1″,”Channel_2” and “Channel_3” respectively.

There you go, bigger post coming later tonight.

Simple ADC with Raspberry Pi using MCP3008

Hello!

So for my own benefit, here’s the steps you need to take to get analog inputs working with a Raspberry Pi.

I’m grabbing most of this from: http://scruss.com/blog/2013/02/02/simple-adc-with-the-raspberry-pi/

The first thing you’ll need is an MCP3008. Using jumper wires, hook it up to your pi using this diagram.

Power your RPi up and run the following commands to get it all set up.

First thing’s first, you’ll need to enable SPI in the kernel so:

Comment out the spi-bcm2708 line so it looks like this:

Then run this to make it more permanent.

Now for the real meat of it. You’ll need these packages for SPI and the WiringPi library makes things a whole lot easier for us.

Now everything should be good to go, now for the python.

You can debug this any way you like, but my favorite way to do it is using the program geany. I like to start up a VNC server with root so I don’t get into any trouble with the GPIO permissions.

But here’s the program.

And that’s pretty much it, the result should look something like this:

There you go!

Basic Wetness Sensor

So I’ve had the idea for a while to try and automate the growing of plants so I need to be able to tell if something’s wet or not. Here’s a video:

Basically the hookup process is that of a regular analog sensor with this in it’s place. There’s a 10k pullup resistor as the voltage divider.

Here’s the source for the Arduino.

That’s pretty complex but I was trying to make the light changes more drastic so it would show up in the video better.

Here are some pictures of the build process:

Thanks for reading!