Having one of the worst climate killers in my home, a Nespresso machine, is not making me happy. I already stopped using their capsule ecosystem but now, the machine is just being used as room decoration. But what if I could harvest it for the better?
After a bit of research, I found this project, where a coffee machine is used for automated watering. While this project requires you to remove the heating unit in the coffee machine while somehow hooking it up to an Arduino, yet another project describes the pure removal of the water pump.
Turning a Coffee Machine into a Smart Garden - ThePlantBot.com
While up-cycling coffee machines sounds cool in general, I was wondering whether there were any approaches for automated watering solely based on existing energy / forces. The plants make use of it - why can't the tech behind it leverage existing energy?
Indeed there is a way, to leave out the pump, just by using the power of gravity. When checking my balcony capabilities, I found that there would be ways to attach a water tank to a higher point, while the watered plants live in a lower position.
Yet another use case for the servos: I found that optimizing the grade of efficiency of solar panels can be improved by making sure to use the right angle towards the sun.
Sun Tracking Solar Panel Project using Microcontroller
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