Plant Hub v1.0

What it does

One small board waters a plant and runs its lights. A socketed ESP32-C3 Super Mini switches two independent 5V LED strip channels (white + grow) through logic-level MOSFETs, drives a water pump through a plug-in 5V relay module, and reads an analog soil-moisture sensor on a WiFi-safe ADC pin. Everything lands on screw terminals — no flying wires, no breadboard.

Build log

• July 2026 — Breadboard to PCB
  The circuit started life validated on a breadboard, then got turned into a real schematic and board in KiCad. The whole design is generated from a single netlist file, so the schematic and PCB can never disagree with each other.
• July 2026 — Verification pays off
  A pre-order design review caught a board-killer: the ESP32 socket footprint had its two pin columns mirrored. Plugging in the module would have put 5V into a GPIO pin. Cross-checking the footprint against photos of the real module caught it before ordering — the fix, plus a pump-gate pulldown and a ground-pour repair, all went in before a single board was made. Lesson for first-time designers: verify footprints against the physical part, not your memory.
• July 2026 — Sent to fab
  Final design passed ERC and DRC with zero errors and zero unconnected nets at JLCPCB's design rules. Boards and parts are ordered — assembly and firmware are next.

Downloads

Everything you need to make this board yourself, MIT licensed (license):

Status