Syncin’ n’ Sprinkin’ from Pete Lewis on Vimeo.
Pete Lewis from Spark Fun have built a cool Smart Lawn Sprinkler project that is designed to save water by only putting it where it can be used. It does this by varying the water pressure to restrict the distance that the sprinkler can spray. It is a crude method but works very well! A potentiometer is used to measure the current sprinkler position, this data is fed into a microcontroller. The microcontroller then controls a servo that is connected to a small water control valve. The result is a sprinkler that is operating at full power when it can and slows to a trickle when it needs to.
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Finally, a solution to watering cars, pedestrians (me), pavement and siding by the lawn-obsessed. You should apply for some kind of water-conservation funding (seriously…it’s small steps like this that have a huge impact).