Mr.Sparkle’s Arduino Controlled 5 Gal Bucket Micro Grow 2017

[Mr. Sparkle]

Mr. S,

Looking good in the space bucket!

Any light leaks or temperature issues to report?

Nope, light leak wise sure isn't optimal especially where some components took some paint off, still need to make the carbon filter but with that a a few tweaks could have it pretty much dark, ill grab a photo whenever i get around to building a filter.


Heat wise not should rise a bit with a carbon filter, but currently its actually running right around 24 degrees which is cooler than my pc cases, gotta love when you can externally mount heatsinks and extract air right through the top.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

JellyPow here you go

pictures are as follows, and i removed the lcd led jumper awhile ago so its just doesn't have a led back light running

1. Without anything covering the outtake

2. With about an inch of open cell filter foam

3. With the carbon filter i made tonight

4. And lit up with a hallway light

So you can see the slight light leaks i need to deal with eventually if i want to, but its pretty close to being light proof at the moment, oh and temperature only increased by about 1 degree but need a bit more testing

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 26

Yeah was definite nitrogen toxicity, but on the mend now, just doing very light feed water till things level out, and started some basic scrog/lst work for now

 

[Tbonegrower]

I am digging this bucket quite a bit! It looks like your little lady is gonna fill it right up!

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 30 Plucked some fan leafs to make things flow a bit better and prevent bolting, also separated out the bud sites, but hopefully we won't be touching much of it from here on out, things are just starting to flower and were about half way there, so we will see how this goes, hopefully my pruning didn't stunt it too much.

Oh also was still noticing a nitrogen toxicity so its been getting straight water for the last couple of days and will till things level out a bit, then ill add in some bloom nutrients.

 

[Tbonegrower]

Looks super promising.

You will have a bucket o' nugs before too long!!

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 33 The Plant is moving along but i don't think it will yield as much as i would like just from current growth rate but we will see with approximately 4 weeks to go, its probably due to the nutrient fluctuation and toxicity but it's the first run so i wasn't really expecting to be dialed from the get go.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 36, Currently she's starting to throw out that final burst of stretch so if i planned it some what decently we wont have to touch anything, but if not i'll just bend the tall tops over and tie them down, nutrient wise things had leveled out and started to become deficient which was what i needed in order to level out the coco from my over fertilization, so now i have set the current water mix at around 0.76 ec or 380ppm composed of mainly maxibloom with a bit of maxigro still mixed in for added nitrogen, as now it will be transitioning to flower side of the nutrient spectrum.

So definitely not ideal, but not bad and on the mend.

 

[solofoe]

I need to do more reading on ardino controllers... my best friend from back high school would love this thread, he's had the idea of an ardino controlled grow since we were kids

 

[oldbootz]

Very cool, subbed

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 40 Total from sprout with about 3+ weeks to go, increased the feed slightly this morning to around 450ppm or 0.9ec with the addition of some maxigro as to increase the nitrogen content that looks a little low. Also took away all the scrog "rubberbands" as the structure on the plant is pretty much set so it didn't need it anymore and trimmed out a bunch of the lower stuff that would just become fluff and energy sinks, so its still growing and stretching but hopefully we wont have to tie anything down. Still think the final yield will be less than i expect due to the rough start.

 

[Tbonegrower]

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 43 Some of the bottom leaves are being consumed, upped the feed again to around 600ppm or 1.2ec, wont raise it any further, but shes starting to build bud now but i'm gonna say its going to be a low yield out of her, next round i might run three plants in my regular pots to avoid as much pruning and training, or just run again and don't over fertilize and run some different genetics i know will produce well. Also would like to swap one or two of the led's out to a cooler spectrum, but i might wait on that and make a 4 light lid instead, for possible another bucket that i don't need.

 

[mjconfid]

Hi Mr S,

Like the tech!

I trying to plan a raspberry pi controlled micro DTW and plan to use a have a few Qs:

How much water does the plant get through in a week?
How often do they end up being watered by the arduino?

Cheers!

Also I saw this ESP8266 +OLED" during my research and though you may be interested as it can be programmed with the arduino IDE, and I recall that somewhere you mentioned getting a small OLED:


https://www.banggood.com/Wemos-Nodemcu-Wifi-And-ESP8266-NodeMCU-1_3-Inch-OLED-Board-White-p-1160048.html?rmmds=search

 

[Jellypowered]

I can't believe its been 40+ days already man seems like I was just reading about you building this. Time flies when you're having fun and experimenting lol.

I'm on day 31 of flower in my shed got somewhere between 20-30 days left, as I don't know the actual genetics. Some of the pistils are starting to turn brown/orange and she's filling out

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

This will also be a double photo post from be being away and like my PC cases this ran a little dry to due to recent set point change being a bit to high.

So things are starting to build up, another probably week to week and half to go but i'm not expecting much it could be deceiving with it all spread out but i don't think so.

Day 46

Day 50

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Hi Mr S,

Like the tech!

I trying to plan a raspberry pi controlled micro DTW and plan to use a have a few Qs:

How much water does the plant get through in a week?
How often do they end up being watered by the arduino?

Cheers!

Also I saw this ESP8266 +OLED" during my research and though you may be interested as it can be programmed with the arduino IDE, and I recall that somewhere you mentioned getting a small OLED:


https://www.banggood.com/Wemos-Nodemcu-Wifi-And-ESP8266-NodeMCU-1_3-Inch-OLED-Board-White-p-1160048.html?rmmds=search

For watering totally depends on the plant and setup, first its dictated by how long my watering "event" is so if its say 7 secs vs 5 more water can come out in 7secs than 5 obviously, now it will check again an hr later and if things haven't equalized yet or is still above that setpoint it will water again then check again in an hr till its past that now i found for me at least 1hr time difference between checks is a good safe low point for me as any less you can get into over watering situations where you will have left over water sitting in the tray as you aren't leaving enough time for the media to equalize through natural capillary action or you can go longer than that hr which will just allows things to equalize a bit better but obviously you'll have a bit larger swings between "wet and dry" per your setpoint so the control isnt as fine but thats not a bad thing.

Now plant wise if they are young maybe once every 3-4 days, and bigger pots need watering less often, but if the plants are big and the setup is running on a wetter setpoint then it could be watering every day or day and half composed of say two or three watering "events" right back to back to bring things back past that setpoint.

Really you just need to play around but smaller waterings more often with an equalization time is the way to go for consistency, but i would go into talk about forcing dry times to accelerate feeding potentially but that's something i plan to play with in the future.

Oh and yeah ordered up some 1" oled's the other day, bit different than those but think the same display just backing board is different.

I can't believe its been 40+ days already man seems like I was just reading about you building this. Time flies when you're having fun and experimenting lol.

I'm on day 31 of flower in my shed got somewhere between 20-30 days left, as I don't know the actual genetics. Some of the pistils are starting to turn brown/orange and she's filling out

Sure does, and awesome

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day what 53 i guess now, still budding out and bulking up slightly, couple orange pistils but that from those buds being bumped previously, new pistils are still coming out a bit and the calyx's still need to bulk up.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 57 Almost there, probably come the weekend i chop it down, but yeah next time i definitely will try and fill it more and run things a bit easier to avoid issues, but now is about the time to start thinking what ill run next, so might go organic for the next round as i already have some mix made up, and maybe run three plants instead of one using a seed each from some recent free seeds i got from winning a sweet seeds photo comp on another forum , whats your opinion ?

 

[blynx]

I'd say try three, to see how they grow in the bucket vs a single plant, tho I would probably lean toward three of the same strain.