Electrolyte Conductivity vs. Ionic Activity: Why EC Alone Can Mislead Your Nutrient Decisions
Your EC meter is telling you only part of the story. Two nutrient solutions reading identical EC values can produce dramatically different plant growth outcomes in controlled studies. The reason…
Read More
Connecting a low cost TDR moisture content/EC/temp sensor to a NodeMCUv3
I have discussed moisture content sensors extensively in the past. I have written posts about the use of capacitive moisture sensors to measure volumetric moisture content, including how to create…
Read More
The ultimate EC to ppm chart and calculator
Electrical conductivity (EC) meters in hydroponics will generally give you different types of readings. All of these readings are conversions of the same measurement – the electrical conductivity of the…
Read More
Improving on HydroBuddy’s theoretical conductivity model, the LMCv2
Hydrobuddy’s theoretical conductivity estimates have never been good. As I discussed in a previous post, the program uses a very simple model based on limiting molar conductivities to calculate the…
Read More
Creating a pH/EC wireless sensing station for MyCodo using an Arduino MKR Wifi 1010
There are multiple open-source projects available online for the creation of pH/EC sensing stations for hydroponics. However, all of the ones I have found use a single Arduino or Raspberry…
Read More
A new conductivity model in HydroBuddy
On my previous post you can read about how I ran experiments to develop a conductivity model using empirical data in order to improve our ability to predict EC values…
Read More
Building a model to predict EC in hydroponic nutrient solutions
Electrical conductivity (EC) is one of the most useful parameters in the practical preparation of hydroponic nutrient solutions. This is because knowing the expected conductivity of a nutrient solution can…
Read More
Why TDS is NOT equal to Total Dissolved Solids in hydroponics
Electrical conductivity is a very commonly used measurement in hydroponics, yet a very poorly understood one. I have written several posts about conductivity in the past (1,2,3) and today I…
Read More
Nutrient solution conductivity estimates in Hydrobuddy
People who use Hydrobuddy can be confused by its conductivity estimates, especially because its values can often mismatch the readings of conductivity meters in real life. This confusion can stem…
Read More
Creating a robust pH/EC monitor for hydroponics using Atlas probes and an Arduino
A few months ago I talked about how you could build a simple sensor station for your hydroponic projects using an arduino (see here). However this small project used the…
Read More