Growroom automation - Growduino

[r-man]

Hi2All,

from time to time we can read about experiments with growroom automation. Sometimes somebody build something, but it's hardly usable for others or it cannot be simply build again. Two years ago, when I was looking for a machine/computer or just anything to help me automate my growroom (presented @ Grower.cz), there was nothing on earth at desirable price.

So i started to develop my own, I found two programmers and now it's nearly finished. There are a few things to implement, like PH and EC and CO2 sensors and CO2 valve driver, but it seems quite good just now. I named it Growduino.

It can automate 8 outputs like light, fans, humidifier etc...it can measure all basics like air temperature, humidity, water temp and also water level in a tank. It can also send email alerts if anything goes wrong. And the best - all can be set up from any web browser all over the world

So what now? Basically I need to consult with somebody, who has experience with CO2 sensors and dosing. It's very expensive for me and now i have moved to another place where it is not possible to have growroom, so any help with consulting will be apreciated. Or even testing

Pic of my Growduino included...

 

[r-man]

I hope that admins will not delete this thread like they did on *****.com . I tried to contact them there, but no answer, just deleted thread and can not post any more (happened a week ago...) :-(

 

[ganjourno]

I run CO2 and Dosers. Here's a link to my thread: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=302421

Let me know if I can help.

 

[Beta Test Team]

Hi2All,

from time to time we can read about experiments with growroom automation. Sometimes somebody build something, but it's hardly usable for others or it cannot be simply build again. Two years ago, when I was looking for a machine/computer or just anything to help me automate my growroom (presented @ Grower.cz), there was nothing on earth at desirable price.

There are a few good options for automation like you say you want, one for example is Growtronix. Growtronix is really state of the art, the only drawback is it's a 1-wire system and branded hardware (although much hardware that isn't Growtronix brand is easily interfaced with Growtronix):
http://www.growtronix.com/store/

Or to a lessor extent iPoinc600:
http://iponicusa.com/products/

Or another option is AutoGrow products:
http://www.autogrow.com/products/multi

Then there are systems for greenhouses that are larger scale.

I bet your thread at the other forum got deleted because it was spam, as this thread sure seems a lot like spam. If you want to advertise then do the right thing and pay up, like other companies.

 

[Beta Test Team]

I run CO2 and Dosers. Here's a link to my thread: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=302421

Let me know if I can help.

Looks like you're using mechanical injectors, but r-man seems to be asking about peristaltic dosing pumps, not mechanical injectors like MixRite, Dosatron, MiniDos, etc.

The name "Dosatron" and "MiniDos" are a bit misleading, as they're actually injectors, not dosers.

 

[GreenGreenie]

Hi2All,


I found two programmers and now it's nearly finished. There are a few things to implement, like PH and EC and CO2 sensors and CO2 valve driver, but it seems quite good just now. I named it Growduino.

It can automate 8 outputs like light, fans, humidifier etc...it can measure all basics like air temperature, humidity, water temp and also water level in a tank. It can also send email alerts if anything goes wrong. And the best - all can be set up from any web browser all over the world

So what now? Basically I need to consult with somebody, who has experience with CO2 sensors and dosing. It's very expensive for me and now i have moved to another place where it is not possible to have growroom, so any help with consulting will be apreciated. Or even testing


I'm a newby to growing, but have built controls for automation for years.
Mostly analog as the software for the controllers is out of control and manually entering the parameters with access panel is too time consuming.
I'm assuming your using a AB brick PLC?
Running any VFD's?
Did you write a interface for win or just code the ladder logic?
What about automating or monitoring sub sytem for multistage operation?

 

[r-man]

2GreenGreenie:
What is AB brick PLC? I'm using Arduino and EthernetShield and I2C display on top.

What is VFD?

About code - there are two sides. First is C code for Arduino, it does handle all the measuring, storing on SD card, Trigger and Alerts running. And also webserver running od EthernetShield. The other side is JavaScript application, it is stored on SD card also. The application is GUI, that's what user will se and will work with. Just like this

I don't really understand wah do you mean with the last sentence.

 

[r-man]

About CO2 - at first I have to properly measure amount of CO2 in the air. This is quite hard, because good sensors costs about 120-150 usd from china. That is too much for me, it has to be low budget system for everybody. 50-60 usd is maximum what I want to spend for one CO2 sensor.

Second - I don't fully understand how CO2 is dosed into the air. And what about ventilation system then? If there is too high temperature, will the exhaust take all the CO2 out of the room? That would be very expensive to run the round :-/ Or there are some closed cycle systems? And bulbs are in the second air circuit and are cooled separately?

 

[r-man]

There are a few good options for automation like you say you want, one for example is Growtronix. Growtronix is really state of the art, the only drawback is it's a 1-wire system and branded hardware (although much hardware that isn't Growtronix brand is easily interfaced with Growtronix):
http://www.growtronix.com/store/

Or to a lessor extent iPoinc600:
http://iponicusa.com/products/

Or another option is AutoGrow products:
http://www.autogrow.com/products/multi

Then there are systems for greenhouses that are larger scale.

I bet your thread at the other forum got deleted because it was spam, as this thread sure seems a lot like spam. If you want to advertise then do the right thing and pay up, like other companies.

Thank You for helping me, It's definitely not a spam. But I understand what may happened there....

Growtronix - That seems nice, but You need an installed application and drivers - a running computer inside or nearby the growroom. And also it's veeery expensive.

iPonic - Also so fucking expensive...why so much??? Water resistant temp sensor for 70usd???WTF?

Autogrow - the same.

Well, they are all focused to large greenhouse scale growing. I want to make a machine for home growers, like I was. But You know - even a small grower wants to have it perfect, right? There must be a way how to do it with much less money.

 

[ganjourno]

About CO2 - at first I have to properly measure amount of CO2 in the air. This is quite hard, because good sensors costs about 120-150 usd from china. That is too much for me, it has to be low budget system for everybody. 50-60 usd is maximum what I want to spend for one CO2 sensor.

Second - I don't fully understand how CO2 is dosed into the air. And what about ventilation system then? If there is too high temperature, will the exhaust take all the CO2 out of the room? That would be very expensive to run the round :-/ Or there are some closed cycle systems? And bulbs are in the second air circuit and are cooled separately?

CO2 is almost always used with sealed rooms - you use an air conditioner to remove the heat instead of fans, so that way all the air stays inside the room.

There are two ways to put CO2 in your room:

1. Tank of pressurized CO2 with a powered regulator. The regulator just has a 110V plug on it and basically acts as a valve - it opens and releases the CO2 into the room, and then shuts off when the CO2 is at the correct level. This is suitable for small-medium sized grows (up to about 250sqft). The bigger you go the more often you have to swap out the tanks, so at some point it becomes impractical.

2. For larger grows or because of cost/convenience, there are CO2 burners that run off a home's gas line or a propane tank, such as: https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/92771/GROW-APCG4LP.html
These are still triggered by 110v so they can run off of the same control unit. COntrollers usually have a different setting for CO2 burners because they cannot be turned on and off as quikcly as using the pressuriezed tanks. So the controllers have a mode for burners that will limit how fast they can be turned on and off.


The main controller uses a "sniffer" to sense the level of CO2. I found this on amazon, already designed for arduinio: http://www.amazon.com/DFRobot-CO2-Sensor-Arduino-Compatible/dp/B00R5CCH7U
$60 is not too expensive - basic CO2 controller stand-alone retails for at least $200 and some are much more than that.

So basically the sensor just needs to switch a 110v outlet, and you need two programs - one for co2 tanks that can have a short cycle range (50ppm), and one for burners that has a longer cycle range (200ppm).

One other feature that people would like is that even with a sealed room, it is important to change the air occasionally, like once per day, so that built up gases can be exhausted. This is more important for the co2 burner users because the burners will use up the oxygen in the room (the flame consumes oxygen when it burns). So having an exhaust option that let's people enter how often to run an exhaust fan, that simultaneously shuts off the co2 during this time, would be great.

 

[Beta Test Team]

Thank You for helping me, It's definitely not a spam. But I understand what may happened there....

Growtronix - That seems nice, but You need an installed application and drivers - a running computer inside or nearby the growroom. And also it's veeery expensive.

iPonic - Also so fucking expensive...why so much??? Water resistant temp sensor for 70usd???WTF?

Autogrow - the same.

Well, they are all focused to large greenhouse scale growing. I want to make a machine for home growers, like I was. But You know - even a small grower wants to have it perfect, right? There must be a way how to do it with much less money.

Good luck, I won't bother you again, as it sure does look like you're spamming to me, still. Your first post here you try to drum up business, which in my opinion is not fair to companies who are paying this site to advertize...(and it's not like it's hard to find your website you're using to sell your product, hell, the whole first page of Google is all links for your product).

There's no reason iPonic 600 or Growtronix can't be used by home growers.

 

[hvac guy]

PLCs all the way, especially Siemens Simatic.

 

[Grownomenal]

Just my two cents here,

I do automation for a living. PLC's are not for your average person. Neither is an arduino. PLCs are great don't get me wrong but we're talking lots of money for software and hardware. Arduino are programming intensive and the control is not for large current carrying devices. Good luck finding a class c relay on an arduino big enough to handle a ballast.

That being said there are solutions out there that are affordable and easy to set up. Johnson Controls makes some really nice environmental relays.

I myself have been working on an all in one solution that will be much more robust than an arduino. Tri PLC makes some super nice oem 100 dollar controllers. Built in web server. Cheap touch screen interfacing. Analog outputs if you did use vfd's on motors. And rs485 sensor integration ( all your sensors can be tied together on one two conductor wire).

I'm not trying to rep anything, believe me I have used it all. I too want a cost effective easy to set up grow controller. My goal is to integrate all pieces of control into the controllers recipies and you choose to hook it up and and use or not use it all from the operator interface.

Bottom line I love automation...I would love to see some data collection from the arduino on a controlled grow. Proof is in the pudding.

 

[Grownomenal]

Forgot to touch on co2 dosing.

The cheapest co2 sensors are co2meter.com 60 bucks, accurate and has voltage output for your controller.

The best (in my opinion) environmental sensors co2 humidity temp are made by vaisala

Control valves. This can get very complicated very quickly. Any controls expert will tell you valves are a science of their own. The easy way out is just relay pulse control and you just tune it till your happy. But your concentration will fluctuate up and down like the ac in your house. It's called hysteresis. The correct way to maintain a level in a room with steady controlled flow is using a gas flow meter ( badger makes some decent ones ) and a variable control valve. The flow meter is crucial because your pressure in your tank is dropping over time. A PID loop just P and I in this case would then be used to maintain a flow and adjust using the co2 concentration as your process variable. This is called a cascading loop. One loop is controlling flow and another is altering the amount of that flow to hit the co2. A correctly tuned system in a sealed room with constant circulation can maintain an extremely constant level of co2 with little to no waste. It's all it what you want it to do. Look into Clippard for some nice affordable small control valves.

 

[queequeg152]

Just my two cents here,

I do automation for a living. PLC's are not for your average person. Neither is an arduino. PLCs are great don't get me wrong but we're talking lots of money for software and hardware. Arduino are programming intensive and the control is not for large current carrying devices. Good luck finding a class c relay on an arduino big enough to handle a ballast.

That being said there are solutions out there that are affordable and easy to set up. Johnson Controls makes some really nice environmental relays.

I myself have been working on an all in one solution that will be much more robust than an arduino. Tri PLC makes some super nice oem 100 dollar controllers. Built in web server. Cheap touch screen interfacing. Analog outputs if you did use vfd's on motors. And rs485 sensor integration ( all your sensors can be tied together on one two conductor wire).

I'm not trying to rep anything, believe me I have used it all. I too want a cost effective easy to set up grow controller. My goal is to integrate all pieces of control into the controllers recipies and you choose to hook it up and and use or not use it all from the operator interface.

Bottom line I love automation...I would love to see some data collection from the arduino on a controlled grow. Proof is in the pudding.

also worth considering is the cost of software packages required to program most of these controllers.

you can find some siemans micro plc units for pennies on the dollar, but a license of the software is quite costly.

out of curiosity, what PLC do you think to be the easiest to learn? programming wise i mean.
fwiw this is not related to grow controllers what so ever, but rather to a fluid flow metering apparatus, and perhaps also some chiller controls and interfaces. pissy stuff, nothing professional or commercial here.

 

[Grownomenal]

Software wise I have tried them all

Schneider Electric
Beckhoff
Phoenix Contact
Allen Bradley
ABB
Automation Direct
Siemens
Unitronix
Wago
B&B

The going trend is moving towards IEC 6113 which specifies that controllers have to have certain programming languages. Structured text, function block, ladder, sequential function.

Ladder and function block are the easiest. Ladder still requires knowledge of seals and execution.

Above I mention automation direct. These are some super cheap but powerful controllers that are super complicated to program. They use BCD and octal variables. Software is cheap though... Just hard to learn.

Some of the easiest is the Phoenix Contact Nano. Cheap controllers and the software is free. They also support email and SMS with an added module.

I always tell people if you learn the IEC languages then you can do them all. Schneider and Siemens are a good place to start and function block is easiest but again these are the most expensive softwares.

This is all just my opinion from my experience in the field.

 

[r-man]

"CO2 is almost always used with sealed rooms"
-- OK, but what during the night? Some fans will open a channel to get fresh oxygen for plants?

"it is important to change the air occasionally"
-- ahh, here it is

"http://www.amazon.com/DFRobot-CO2-Sensor-Arduino-Compatible/dp/B00R5CCH7U#product-description-iframe"
-- this one looks great, it seems to have voltage up stepper for 6V heating during measurement, thank You!!!

 

[r-man]

Just my two cents here,...

"the control is not for large current carrying devices."
-- take a look here (and there are 60A SSRs also)
http://www.dx.com/p/ssr-25da-25a-solid-state-relay-white-134494#.VSdtPvmUd8E

"Tri PLC" - looks nice, but what is the price count all the sensors and main unit and high current relays together? I see thousand of dollars, sorry.

"I would love to see some data collection from the arduino on a controlled grow."
- I can't have a grow production data, but I can send You some from my testing model. Just tell me where(email address?)

 

[r-man]

Forgot to touch on co2 dosing.

The cheapest co2 sensors are co2meter.com 60 bucks, accurate and has voltage output for your controller.

The best (in my opinion) environmental sensors co2 humidity temp are made by vaisala

Control valves. This can get very complicated very quickly. Any controls expert will tell you valves are a science of their own. The easy way out is just relay pulse control and you just tune it till your happy. But your concentration will fluctuate up and down like the ac in your house. It's called hysteresis. The correct way to maintain a level in a room with steady controlled flow is using a gas flow meter ( badger makes some decent ones ) and a variable control valve. The flow meter is crucial because your pressure in your tank is dropping over time. A PID loop just P and I in this case would then be used to maintain a flow and adjust using the co2 concentration as your process variable. This is called a cascading loop. One loop is controlling flow and another is altering the amount of that flow to hit the co2. A correctly tuned system in a sealed room with constant circulation can maintain an extremely constant level of co2 with little to no waste. It's all it what you want it to do. Look into Clippard for some nice affordable small control valves.

'bout control valves...Growduino is measuring and also turning ON and OFF the relays in one minute cycles. So minimal duration of opened valve will be one minute. For example - sensor will sense that there is 800PPM CO2, user setting is to achieve 1200PPM. Growduino will turn a valve relay ON, so the valve will open. After one minute Growduino will measure and sensor gives 1100 PPM. Growduino decides that is not enough and leaves the valve opened. After next minute sensor gives 1400PPM, Growduino knows that is more that 1200 and will close the valve. Easy.

There are some points for tuning:
1. If PPM is raising so quickly, maybe smaller valve diameter has to be used, or just close a little bit the mechanical valve on the gas tank. It will depend on the size of the room (so vice versa also, if the room is bigger)
2. There has to be fan for mixing air inside the room, maybe then it will not be necessary to use flow CO2 sensor. I think everybody has one
3. There has to be a trigger programmed on Growduino, which will prevent to run exhaust fan during CO2 dosing into the area.

Than you so much for infos, this is starting to look good

 

[r-man]

CO2 sensor module DFRobot

CO2 sensor module DFRobot

I've jist posted a few questionsto their site, will see if this sensor is what I'm looking for.

www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=36_85&product_id=1023