Description of the Problem/Solution

My pet ball python, Mojo, lives comfortably inside a handmade wooden cage. Inside the cage is three hiding spots, a water bowl, a log, and various small rocks. The heat is provided by a heat pad under the sub-floor and basking light. I switch the basking light off every night and back on every morning. Humidity is supplied by the water bowl and a spray bottle that I try to use twice a day. I had two thermometer/hygrometer sensors, one on each side of the cage to monitor the hot and cold ends. A couple of weeks ago, the batteries in both of the sensors died. In part to my laziness and in part to my confidence that I could maintain proper conditions for a ball python, I have yet to buy replacements.

This led me to think of a better way to control the environment inside the cage. At first, I just wanted to be able to spray/mist every so often. This led me to many commercial systems available for pet reptile care. These systems provide few settings to change how often and how much spray is released. I would also like an intelligent systems. Why spray when it is not necessary? I wanted to be able to spray according to the humidity level. The first thing that came to mind was the Arduino microcontroller, which I had seen many times during my daily web-surfing on the Hackaday website. If you enjoy playing around with electronics, I suggest you take a look at this site. I now plan to use this microcontroller to make the environment completely autonomous. It will measure temperature, humidity, and time, and make the appropriate adjustments. For now, due to budgetary confinements, I will use the Arduino to control the day/night cycle and spray on a predetermined schedule. I will later update the system to full autonomy when the funds are present.

Wow, this is a long one. I hope to keep these shorter in the future, but I wanted everyone(although I'm sure there won't be that many) to be up to date on this project. I plan to update once a week until finished and include cool pictures along the way. The project has just begun as I just received the Arduino in the mail yesterday. I will be working on programming until I obtain more materials. I hope you enjoy reading about this project. Good night.