ANT/BC-ANT-SERIAL with Moisture Sensor

ANT

BC-ANT-SERIAL with moisture sensor †

This is an example of electronics work, which uses BC-ANT-USB and a moisture sensor. This basically explains how to build a transmitter of moisture sensor with BC-ANT-SERIAL.
BC-ANT-SERIAL can be attached to a microcontroller (IC) with only 5pins. One of 5pins is for the power source, which is between 1.9V and 3.3V. Another pin is assigned to ground. The other three pins are attached to the single end of TXD, RXD, and RTS. (Reset, sleep, and suspension functions will be added to BC-ANT-SERIAL) These pins work with 0.1 Inch (2.54mm) pin header.

This example of electrics work uses the MSP430G2553 (20pin DIP) of Texas Instruments, and this CPU is a part of MS430 LaunchPad. MS430 LaunchPad is required for writing Code into the CPU, so if you do not have one, please purchase one. MSP430LaunchPad is available at here.

• Schematic
  MAKER-2012-1005A.pdf
  

• Example of Implementation
  
  

• Parts List

  No	qty.	Reference	Product Type	Specifications	Memo
  1	1		LED
  2	1		Pin-Header	1x4 pin	2.54mm pitch
  3	1		Female Pin-Header (Pin-Header Socket)	1 x 5 pin	2.54mm pitch, it should be fitted to BC-ANT-SERIAL
  4	1		Resistor 1/16 ~ 1/4 W	1kΩ	Pull-up resistor for RST/NMT pin
  5	1		Resistor 1/16 ~ 1/4 W	330Ω	For LED
  6	1		Micro Switch		Turn On/OFF Power Supply
  7	1		CPU	MSP430G2553	This is a part of MSP430launchPad
  8	1		BC-ANT-SERIAL
  9	1		Moisture Sensor		http://www.switch-science.com/products/detail.php?product_id=814
  10	1		Pin-Header	1 x 5 pin	This is soldered on BC-ANT-SERIAL with 2.54mm pitch
  11	1		Pin-Header	1 x 4 pin	It is connected to the moisture sensor
  12	1		Battery Holder		It is fitted with CR2032
  13	1		Battery		CR2032

LEDs, resistors, capacitors, switches, pin-headers, and CPUs can be available at electronics hobby shops. Also, you can purchase from mail orders and the internets. The sensors are available at digkey and sparkfun.

For its development environment, Energia is used.

Program †

Since the moisture sensor is an analog sensor, ADC (A0) of MSP430 is used for reading the values.
The data that MSP430 has read is changed into ANT format and written out to serial port.

Source: MoistureSensor.ino
Communication Speed: 9600bps
ANT Channel Configuration
Device#: 1
DeviceType: 1
TransType: 1
Period: 2Hz
Freq: 2450MHz

Python Application †

The application for the moisture sensor is listed at Python Application section of ANT/BC-ANT-SERIAL with various sensors. The application for moisture sensor is included in 4S.py.
This application is written in wxPython. To use this application, please install the execution environment correctly, and put the Python file in an arbitrarily created directory. Execute 4S.py, the value of moisture sensor is displayed in blue.

The execution environment is created with python-2.7.3 and wxPython2.8-win32-unicode-2.8.12.1-py27.exe.

Revision History †

• 2013/02/04 This article is initially uploaded