Automated Rain Shield for Laundry Using Arduino

Hey guys in this project i will show you how i made this Automatic Rain Activated Cloth Shade using Arduino which is most suited for household and camping purposes.

The most common concern while camping or lets say in the house is getting the clothes dry after laundry, Almost everyone has the instance of getting the clothes wet from rain when its kept for dry.

This project gives the solution for that issue, To begin with let me quicky give a short explanation on working of this project.

This automatic cloth shade system uses a rain sensor and a servo motor. When the rain sensor detects rain, it sends a signal to the Arduino it processes this signal, and control the servo horns to move cloth line to shade hence protecting the clothes.

When the rain stops, the Arduino tells the servo to come to its original position, uncovering the clothes. The system ensures clothes are automatically protected from rain without any monitoring by us.

If you are building this project i have given all the resources in this instructable, Feel free to ask any questions.

The list of materials used to make this is available easily in hobby electronics shop, if you don't have any check for online.

Arduino Uno

Micro Servo

Rain Sensor

Jumper wires

Piece of cardboard

Hot glue and double sided adhesive

Patience to build this project!

Arduino IDE and programming cable

To all the beginners out here let me explain this very simple circuit diagram to you.

I have used 2 components here one is the servo and the other is the rain sensor itself and the connections are as follows

Note that i will not be using any external power source in this project, I will use the USB power source to power this project and if you are willing you can use an external dc source too.

Servo Connections

Connect the red wire of the servo to the 5V pin on the Arduino and the black or brown wire of the servo to GND pins on the Arduino

Now Connect the yellow or orange wire of the servo to pin 9 on the Arduino. This pin will send the control signals to the servo to move it to the desired position.

Rain Sensor Connections

Connect the VCC pin of the rain sensor to the 5V pin on the Arduino and the GND pin of the rain sensor to one of the GND (ground) pins on the Arduino.

For the Signal connect the digital output pin (D0) of the rain sensor to pin 2 on the Arduino. This pin will read the sensor's output to detect rain and trigger the servo

This completes the wiring for this project, Now we can head over to uploading the codes

The arduino codes used in this project is attached to this step, Simply copy and paste it to your IDE and click on upload.

After the code is done uploading we can head over to test the functionality of the circuit but before you need to know how this codes work in order to make any customized changes for your project.

How the program works and how it is contributing for this project! The answer is really simple if you understand the below logic

To read the Sensor in the loop function, we check the rain sensor to see if it's detecting rain (store this information in sensorValue) and Print the sensor value to the serial monitor for debugging.

You can check the values by connecting the arduino to computer and opening serial monitor, drop water on the sensor and it should show up some values in the monitor.

Now to move the Servo, If the sensor detects rain (sensor value is LOW), we move the servo to 90 degrees to cover the clothes.

If no rain is detected (sensor value is HIGH), we move the servo back to 0 degrees to uncover the clothes.

We wait for 1 second before checking the sensor again. This prevents the servo from moving too quickly and repeatedly.

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To build the model house i made use of the cardboard from my parcel boxes! This is a genius way to build such models where you can expect high quality of models.

Who doesn't know how to build a house! we all grew up making cardboard and paper houses and now if that skill is still within you you can make your own design.

If you are struck simply follow my steps and make this house, I used pieces of cardboard strips and to couple them i used hot glue.

Make sure you have some extra space by the side of the house and now the space here is for placing the electronics! You are wrong if you think that space is for making a pool or a small garden.

After the house is dry and strong enough we can head over to place the electronics.

When it rains the first part in the house that will know is the roof itself, So i have installed the rain sensor on the roof, make sure you hide the amplifier module away from rain because rain will affect the working of this part.

After this we can head over to installing the servo, to make this first you have to power on the project and add a drop of water to the sensor.

Note the movement of servo and adjust in such a way that that cloth will be kept for dry by default and when the servo is activated upon rain detection the servo move towards the house along with the clothes.

I made the clothes with paper just to show that really works, Glue this part to the horn of the servo using hot glue and wait for drying.

Now again test the working of the servo and now the project is ready for some action.

How this project works is the most awaited question among you right! Well i will give a answer to that, The working is very simple all thanks to the combination of electronics and codes together making this project work

Normally after the clothes are washed they are either put for sundry or shade dry, lets ignore the shade dry mode and focus on the sundry mode.

When the clothes are kept for dry we never know when rain comes and if it comes are the efforts of you washing the clothes will go in vain, how sad this is right!

Say no more to this issue, with this project setup your clothes will never get wet from the rain and the principle is very simple behind this idea

The rain sensor is active and if it detects any rain/water drops it will activate the micro servo, the horns of servo rotate getting all the line of cloth to the shade hence preventing from getting wet.

Like i said the rain sensor is very active, Now if the rain stops the servo again move the line of cloth and now the cloth is kept for dry again.

This completes this project, If you have any questions, ask in the comments, Thanks for reading.

Here is the video tutorial and also the working video of this project when the rain occurs.

If you have trouble loading the video https://youtu.be/CfM17Tn7eYw check here

Keep your clothes dry with this idea, There are multiple variants that could be build using this single idea, if you have any let me know in the comments.

Have a great build and see you in the other project, Thank you makers :)