Hey yall, I just read this article on DIY Automation. My son and I are automating our first system. He is a mechanical engineer and I am an electrical guy. We start the project this weekend. He has purchased the components and will use the Arduino Board that has been mentioned in this thread along with a solar powered pump and some other bells and whistles. We have looked at several projects, some of which are completely overdone with massive PLC's using relay and timer functions etc... We have an idea of what we want to achieve and we're confident that he can program it correctly. We will possibly control the whole thing via wireless communication. We will document the project and I will keep the forum posted of progress.