New Room Design: rip me apart!

[green_tea]

Tell me what you think:







Setup is 4x400W CMH bulbs, each "block" is apx 3' x 10' the two fans sucking out of the vent system will most likely be 8" Panasonic Whisper quiet fans with scrubbers attached. (Do you think I should add a 3rd one to the vent system?)

there will eventually be two blocks, set on a flip flop.

Sealed room design, dehum / AC / CO2 in each block. (I may try to rig up some system to circulate the air through both blocks; will 1500PPM CO2 cause problems for the plant when it is in its dark cycle?)

everything is going to be controlled via my programming experiment.
the RO water tank is the only one, and is shared between all blocks. there will be a chiller in there also; looking at a 100Gallons a day RO filter.

the type of hydro setup will be Flood and drain, with hydroton pellets; I will probably custom make the trays as to cut down on used hydroton. (and probably put each plant in a plastic net pot.)

Each tray will have its own pump, but be taken from the same overall nutrient tank. this way, each block can be setup for a different strain (though I wish i could do more, but its just not cost effective)

There will be Drainage solenoids in all the nute tanks, along with one in the RO water tank too (in case of a malfunction I want to be able to drain the RO tank until I can get back there and manually shut off the water or whatnot)

I will use gravity solenoids for dosing PH / grow/micro/bloom additive1/additive2.
By this I mean a tank that is on a shelf, with a tube going to a solenoid that works for gravity fed systems like this, and then that will go into the tank. these will be measured before hand so that I know 10 seconds of the solenoid being open means say 50ml of solution. (think IV drip)


As i Said, everything is going to be controlled by my application, and it will also be logging all the data. The goal is to have accurate statistical data to analyze when comparing two different grows, and it will also significantly help to dial in each strain.

(basically two science projects wrapped into one!)


Comments, problems you see arising?

ask away.

 

[Pandemic]

Why so many walkways?




P

 

[green_tea]

its just one

another thing, the Trays will be on carts to make it easier to get to. and those "doors" in the drawing wont be the same type, just there was on other way to really show the DIY doors ill be putting on there. (they will probably be on sliders at the top / bottom)

 

[Pandemic]

Dude, you put a lot of thought into this. I commend you for that.

But, I did too on my current grow. I find myself not using a lot of things. And just today while driving I was thinking that "next time I will go a lot simpler".

KISS, I know you have heard of it.

I spent money on things that would have been better applied in another direction.

I was just joking above.

P

 

[irconfused]

I commend you on attempting an automated setup, but in a few areas it seems to just be complicated for the sake of being complicated.


Just a few things I see... Dual agitators in each res, one or just running a big enough pump and have the return act as a waterfall should be suffice. Multiple intakes and exits, just lots of money and if one fan fails you run the risk of air just being pumped the wrong way through it.

Also one thing thats not outlined is raising or lowering lights, I think if you built a rack and winch like setup and have a pre programed rate for it to raise (since it sounds like you want to learn how to optimally set up a strain then repeat) that seems like the only thing stopping it from being fully automated, in theory at least...

Ive got a nasty cold and this cough syrup has me all doped up so if I misread something my bad. Best of luck with everything, and as pandemic said, K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid!) obviously this is somewhat counterintuitive to an automated setup, but just keep in mind the more systems you rely on the better the chance that something will go wrong.

 

[Mr Celsius]

If you can program in C++ or Binary, and grow a plant, then you'll probably be fine. Looks good.

Computer science field or electrical engineer?

 

[green_tea]

Ex engineer
Computer engineer as a matter of fact, but i left it because i found all the classes to be terribly boring. Now I'm in the IT field, managing servers and such at a data center. Probably be looking for a new job once I get my business degree (in MIS).

With regards to raising and lowering lights: I thought about that, as in making a automated winch, but IMO thats really pushing it, I mean the farthest ill be going is MAYBE modifying the dehum / AC to hook it up to the computer.

I'll have to be watching the plants and everything, at least for the first few grows so I can correctly tune it in, and thats when i can move them. Past that, I'll be doing a SOG so the height shouldn't be completely crazy depending on the strain. assuming a 2 ft growth spurt (and so far what I've been reading about CMHs tell me that its more like 12-18inches) I could just add a few inches to that and thats how high id hang them. I mean yeah inverse square law, but whatever, the way i understand it is its because its assuming that if you are doubling the distance away from the point of light, then you are then quadrupling the surface area that the light source is illuminating.

calculations:

dome @ 100 meters diameter =~ 31416

dome @ 50 meters diameter =~ 7854

roughly 1/4 ...

since were talking 95% reflective hood, 95% reflective walls, etc... I wont be losing much.

maybe im wrong about this though, and its just that the calculations manage to work out fine for a doubling of distance (haven't done tripling etc.. im lazy)

KISS for sure, but its more of a science project than anything

 

[Mr Celsius]

Lumen's don't matter, PAR watts matter. If your going to have them 2' away from them when they're small and then then stretch 1', I see no problems with fixating the hoods.

 

[Bigtimer7]

WOW!!

So thats 8 400watt lights?

Thats gunna be really nice man... did you ever debate using like 1000watt MH bulbs? Maybe like 4 lights?

Im impressed man that is a wonderful design and it will be really cool to see it come together. Great job man! Really impressive

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

well techinical person = techincal grow

ido have to agree with pandemic though, seems to be mre than whats really needed. but hey to each his own

 

[green_tea]

its CMH bulbs, and they only come in 400W bulbs currently :/

Currently I'm just waiting for the move. Which will hopefully give me enough time to have all the cash saved up for this.

EDIT: so does anybody know if 1500PPM of CO2 will be harmful to the plants during their night cycle?

 

[Pig-Pen]

I found that the more crap you have to fidget with, the more time you spend fidgeting with crap instead of actually growing plants and learning how to read and listen to them...which is part of the beauty of it all IMO.

The biggest yields and best buds usually come from rather simple setups and very "in-tune" gardeners.

 

[Mr Celsius]

No 1500 ppm wont hurt the plants at night, although, its sort of a waste.. but I'm assuming you're creating this for an automated grow that you can leave for weeks at a time.

 

[green_tea]

yeah, and to mess around with cool toys! (and to work on my programming skills; I've learned a lot already)

Definitely a waste, but if have two rooms, its probably cheaper overall to keep them connected so that they share the same AC / dehum / CO2. Though in the future, say if you were to have 4 total boxes, you could interconnect each pair

but thats even more comlpication, and sorta stupid, may as well just increase the room size and put seperate stuff in each.

THOUGH (haha i know) the whole idea of this is to be able to work on many different strains at once. 2 rooms now would mean two strains, and 4 rooms would mean 4 strains. I haven't even thought of the mother rooms yet, but they def wont be automated.