Easy Gardens are designed to get online once an hour when there is full or partial sun. If your easy garden failed to check in for the last several days then we need to research why.
Occasionally Easy Gardens go offline. Sometimes it’s because the local wifi your Easy Garden uses is not accessible. Other times it could be because your EGT is not getting enough sunshine. Other times it could be something else like a loose cable, something blocking the solar panel, something blocking wifi, or a hardware failure. It could be a combination of things like a loose cable, not much sunshine, and something wrong with wifi. If it’s a hardware issue we will send new hardware otherwise this document will help you fix it. Most connection issues get fixed by double checking each part of the system and fixing it as needed.
Don’t worry we will get this fixed!
Fortunately there are tests for isolating the error or errors and correcting them.
Lets start with an easy and quick test.
Do we have power?
Your EGT gets power from the sun using its solar panel and stores the power in it’s battery or uses it directly to power pumps, the smart camera, control board and or valves. The solar panel is a solid state device which is made from tempered glass and solar cells that should last over 20 years if treated properly.
- Does your EGT have sunshine? If so do you see a yellow light on the control board?
- if you do not see a yellow light and your EGT solar panel is getting light then is the solar panel being blocked by a leaf or something? Try to unblock it.
- If you unblocked the solar panel
- did the yellow light come on — great you are probably done!
- if the light did not come on read the next step
- If there is nothing blocking your solar panel make sure the solar panel wire is pushed all the way in to the control board solar panel socket. When pushing the solar power plug into it’s socket you will feel a small click right before you cannot push further. Please note don’t go crazy pushing the plug in and break the board.
- did the yellow light come on — great you are probably done!
- if the light did not come on take the plug out of the solar socket and check for corrosion on the plastic part of the plug – if you see corrosion … wipe it off with a paper towel and put back in the socket – if that fails we might need to send you a functioning control board and panel
- If you unblocked the solar panel
- if you do see a yellow light then lets go to the next section ‘Is your Easy Garden pumping water’
- if you do not see a yellow light and your EGT solar panel is getting light then is the solar panel being blocked by a leaf or something? Try to unblock it.
- Is your EGT in the dark or a deep shade? If your EGT is in the dark then we need to jump to the Smart Camera test.
Is your Easy Garden pumping water?
Everyday your easy garden pumps 500 liters of water per hour when it receives full sun on the solar panel. For most people that is 3000 to 4000 liters of water pumped per day. The water is pumped from the solar panel end of your easy garden to the smart camera end of your easy garden. The water is gently pumped out a few centimeters above the water level which helps to oxygenate the water and causes the burbling sound you hear from the Easy Garden. The Easy Garden protects your pumps by checking to make sure the tanks are full of water before turning on the water circulation pumps. On bright, sunny, and hot days it’s not uncommon for your pumps to be shutdown till the water level is automatically brought back up when the control board adds water. So if you don’t hear burbling in all the tanks that’s OK. Also another nuance of the system is it only circulates water in one tank at a time.
- If and only if the yellow light is on do you hear a burbling sound from your Easy Garden? The burbling sound is not loud so please listen closely.
- if you hear a burbling sound Great! it means we have power and the control board is probably functioning fine
- if you do not hear a burbling sound and you have good sun go to ‘Smart Camera Testing’.
- If yellow, green and red lights are on.
- Go to ‘Smart Camera Testing’
- If yellow green and red lights are on and you hear a burbling sound from your EGT something is very and probably impossibly wrong with your wiring go to check wiring.
Smart Camera Testing
If you are the person that setup your EGT you have done this before if not then this process is similar to setting up a many IOT enabld devices. Remove your smart camera and weather shield from your EGT. You don’t need the weather shield at the moment so plug the USB A socket of the wire into a USB socket on a wall wart, USB hub, PC or laptop and plug the micro USB end into your smart camera. In five to ten minutes you will see a new log record in your EGT account or you will see a GrowBot network on the your local wifi.