Yes, but push of a button to add nitrate solution is simpler than usong measure cups, well done system wont spend more than 2-3 watts per hour per gb...
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Smart Controller & Smart Tent
- Thread starter Zeca-do-Jardim
- Start date
Yes, but push of a button to add nitrate solution is simpler than usong measure cups, well done system wont spend more than 2-3 watts per hour per gb...
To dose more N, I have had to mix it to a solution that takes about 30 seconds to apply. That's because timers generally work to the second, so that's 30 increments. From this I can adjust up/down. Your dosing method may sometimes take a moment to prime but not always. So less then 10 increments is inaccurate. Just asking for one, might give you nothing. Hence a 30 second delivery. This solution needs stirring as most bottled nutes can't be machined. You must mix them.
One of my N sources is Nitric. Very few hoses can deliver nitric over 30% and methods of stirring it can be sketchy lets say. Even pumps with marine grade stainless shafts fail in a typical B bottle. There is quite a bit going on that all needs attention. Like a nob I pulled a pharmed dosing hose from my Nitric jar and the rubbery thing that it is, splashed my splash back. It can be a lot easier to just pick up a bottle and chuck some in, after seeing what they're doing. Just today I switched to bloom. There was my bottle from 10 days ago, with it's mixing pump idle but dosing would of been just a quick run to mix it up, before over-riding the dosing timer for 1:20. I walked to the new bottle, cracked the lid and poured myself 60ml instead. That's with the dosing system sat there. I still did it by hand.
Ok.. my dosing system is really just for a few days away anyhow, but it will run for weeks. Setting it up isn't growing plants though. It's programming. I like growing. Automation is there for when you can't make it one day. It's forever being dialed in reality. The head gardener isn't looking at these as something that might replace him. It's just another toy.
One day we will see a bust of an automated warehouse, but not yet.
I drip to waste mainly. I just have to clean my filter from time to time. I don't use any products. If I'm using flood/drain I may have to put a curtain wire down the hoses to clear roots that find there way in. The DWC system may run the same risk. It's a mechanical cleaning job though, there is no bottle.
One of my N sources is Nitric. Very few hoses can deliver nitric over 30% and methods of stirring it can be sketchy lets say. Even pumps with marine grade stainless shafts fail in a typical B bottle. There is quite a bit going on that all needs attention. Like a nob I pulled a pharmed dosing hose from my Nitric jar and the rubbery thing that it is, splashed my splash back. It can be a lot easier to just pick up a bottle and chuck some in, after seeing what they're doing. Just today I switched to bloom. There was my bottle from 10 days ago, with it's mixing pump idle but dosing would of been just a quick run to mix it up, before over-riding the dosing timer for 1:20. I walked to the new bottle, cracked the lid and poured myself 60ml instead. That's with the dosing system sat there. I still did it by hand.
Ok.. my dosing system is really just for a few days away anyhow, but it will run for weeks. Setting it up isn't growing plants though. It's programming. I like growing. Automation is there for when you can't make it one day. It's forever being dialed in reality. The head gardener isn't looking at these as something that might replace him. It's just another toy.
One day we will see a bust of an automated warehouse, but not yet.
I drip to waste mainly. I just have to clean my filter from time to time. I don't use any products. If I'm using flood/drain I may have to put a curtain wire down the hoses to clear roots that find there way in. The DWC system may run the same risk. It's a mechanical cleaning job though, there is no bottle.
ridoo
Active member
I am hand watering, but i use laboratory pipette, with them i can dose to the 1/100 of a ml in a couple of seconds, it's cheap and super efficient
how many plants do you grow ? it's all question of scale... if i were the boss of a multiple rooms growing place, growing hundreds of plants 7/7 i guess i would get help from arduino things also, but for a closet....
so, tell us, how many plants are you dealing with ?
I feel ya... My target customers are people who dont know how to grow, cannot be bothered with that, but still need medicine... There are so many cancer patients that just cannot handle all the learning process and experiwnce buildup, most of them are to weak and hurt from chemo to even think clearly, so usually their family members take on growing, who again, overwhelmed by all the info, may make some mistakes thay maay interrupt income of oil, and they need oil as fast as possible, in europe its illegal to grow and make it, many people just by that have a paranoia about it, thats why im making my machine that way... About mixing nutes, there is a way with peristaltic pumps, from what i have heard, it is very accurate, and there is a solution to stirr nutes before delivery to the res, you can see it here:
https://youtu.be/Q9fjKeYOyqU
I am electrical engineer by profession and a programmer by hobby, i strongly believe making highly tunable environment for plants is duable with diy components available on market...
Currently i dont grow, im still developing my machine, i have saved a lot of money to start with testing (where im at its illegal so i would need new place and extra care) but due to a illness in family i put that on a stop, as i said i have it all on paper and tested environment and light control, altough im waiting for my mom to get better so i can move out to my own place and start with prototype... My experience so far has been growing in soil with autos for 2 med patients, but not even close to the ammount they needed to have constant income of cure, hence development of factory style perpetual growth cabinets... I dont smoke anymore so i dont care about testing new varieties or destroying my crops while testing, my main targets are stable species of thc and cbd strains that would yield repeatable results... I have yet to start with nutrient controller, it is somewhat complex system that i still need to think it trough... Self cleaning of tanks and modularity is a must for my design, but i have a lot of experience in automation of complex machines (i built those all around the europe) im confident i will pull it out...
You could say im a greedy capitalist only wanting to make highest profit and dont care about organics, complexity or consumers out of my goal...
My scale would be 1 mother/clone tent, 1 veg tent, 4-5 flower tents, every 2 weeks harvest, system would include terpene and cannabinoid extraction and pill producing, probably with adition of supplements like vitamin d3, resveratrol, omega 3, mushroom extracts etc... It would have to be plug & play, reliable, low maintenance (i shoot for as less cleaning as there can be since cancer patients are too weak to wash all that and their caretakers dont have that much time on their hands)...
I have to disagree with some points stated here... Properly programmed system wont have any bugs in this kind of operation (it is simple if this then that operation for which there are pretty stable devices out there), because in testing process you put your machine trough every situation that can happen in the field (failure of a sensor, devices) and you make adjustments in your program so that user gets notified and your system dont make adjustments to environment based on errors (your sensor dies and ahows - 127 C, you program system so that it knows its sensor fault and not real measurement and hence dont heat growbox based on that reading), you take into account operator mistakes (plug and unplugg things, shake and kick device, scream at it and call it a piece of shit etc), if you dont believe me check out home automation community which have diy devices that last for more than a year without any problems... And my design would be plug and play, so, arduino dies, you take it out and put new one, good pumps are made to last, if you use it properly it will serve you at least as long as warranty does, most devices have specified working hours that they can operate without fault, easy notification to user about expiration date would suffice to prevent failure during grow... Yes, many of you here are used to people who read trough 5 tutorial sites on how to program arduino, and then have their crop failed due to time counter reset after 70 days or unshielded communication of sensors trowing off weird readings... Im not talking about that here... There is a strong open source community in programming with great experience that offer ways to make stable and cheaper solutions than lets say trolmaster or others...
Btw Zeca, to give you some hints, there were allready totally automated growboxes on market, from what ive seen most of them went bankrupt, there is just no market for that, nobody is going to pay 2500 usd for some small cabinet when they can get away with far less and some work put into, there are ok temp/hum readers, dehumidifiers with setpoints (not just on off but set to lets say 50%), and cheap digital thermostats which turn on and off vents... I dont think youll find market big enough to develop that kind of a product...
ridoo
Active member
you are into medical grade products for cancer patients, then i perfectly understand your project of controled quality and so on...
I'm just a stoner and i grow plants in a closet for my own consumption
take care of your project as you said it's somehow illegal in your place, be careful
Anyone pushed into growing without any interest in it except the product is probably going to grow in compost. It's what garden-centers are set up around. It's going to be like growing tomato's or house plants. Which we all learn at school and most take no further.
A space, a light, a timer. A fan and filter. Bag of compost and a simple drip kit often aimed at hanging baskets. Environmental control is keeping the house warm.
I use peristaltic pumps. The one's with brushless stepper motors, the stepper controller and the pwm signal generator. Fitted with the pharmed hose to handle most things once diluted into the hose's range. These pumps regularly split the hose though and dump whatever wherever. So are not really suited to delivering acid. I have a cradle over my tank for this reason. It means I know where the fluid is going.
Most people can't even keep their bottles clean. Correction.. not a single person I know can keep a bottle clean. It doesn't matter how many items of clothing they ruin, or how much skin they loose, they never respect the chemicals. So somebody with no interest and poor motor skills, shouldn't get involved.
The fact we rarely hear that final point spoke of, tells us of the total lack of respect most have for things that could seriously fuck them up. An orange is too acidic to trust some people with it.
A space, a light, a timer. A fan and filter. Bag of compost and a simple drip kit often aimed at hanging baskets. Environmental control is keeping the house warm.
I use peristaltic pumps. The one's with brushless stepper motors, the stepper controller and the pwm signal generator. Fitted with the pharmed hose to handle most things once diluted into the hose's range. These pumps regularly split the hose though and dump whatever wherever. So are not really suited to delivering acid. I have a cradle over my tank for this reason. It means I know where the fluid is going.
Most people can't even keep their bottles clean. Correction.. not a single person I know can keep a bottle clean. It doesn't matter how many items of clothing they ruin, or how much skin they loose, they never respect the chemicals. So somebody with no interest and poor motor skills, shouldn't get involved.
The fact we rarely hear that final point spoke of, tells us of the total lack of respect most have for things that could seriously fuck them up. An orange is too acidic to trust some people with it.
Like Mr. Zeca-do-Jardim, I am also setting up a tent, well a pair of 4 x 4s next to each other. My desire is to automate as much as I can. The motivation for me is quality, and not making un-necessary mistakes, because I am busy, but mostly because I am a complete noob.
F-e posted about subsystems, getting them running, and going from there. That is how I am doing my buildout, and I will offer my thoughts. I will have separate light controller channel for each tent, a fan controller for each, and timer-controlled automated drip to waste irrigation system in each. The tents have separate air exhausts to outside with temp or humidity controllers. The controllers are in an adjacent room for stealth. CO2, temp, Rh data loggers in each tent.
Something to tie these systems together would be nice, but for now that is the grower.
This may exist... I would like to be able to control my watering to soil moisture, or lights, or whatever the fuck else, cause I know nothing about growing dope. My water is controlled by one of those second interval timers f-e mentioned. 12 gallon supply, 4 gallon waste-water collection each, in my case. F-e, what water filter on 1/2" tubing?
To maximize the chance of getting good quality, by not having to open the tent later in flowering much at all, should help, and thus would be a good goal.
Oh yeah, one more sub-system. Figure out how to integrate camera channels with a view of the plants from inside the tents, using a video security system (I have not done this - yet). Cam looking at water levels in the reservoir and waste jugs... If the video controller DVR is connected to the internet, you can get live access and motion alerts through a smartphone, remotely. Someone in your spot when you are not there is nice to know.
Me no likey being spied on by the internet, so I want to pull up the feeds and watch it from my desk here in the office. I will run a HDMI video feed to my tee vee there. Wireless mouse to the hidden VCR. Stealth look at the plants and not disturb the room. Xvim, cheap and good. Plug it to the internet and you have remote viewing, nywhere.
https://www.amazon.com/Security-Outdoor-Pre-Install-Recorder-Surveillance/dp/B07MZPV6BW
There is no stopping... Who doesn't want an IR thermal cam looking directly down at the tops, and a remote PAR meter looking up from the tops, so the lights can be adjusted? Integrate a remote cam for the security system. I wanna figure out how to raise/lower the light from outside, all at once, as the tops grow. Same for the PAR meter. It is probably all already for sale.
One more thing to consider is recovery from a power interruption. An integrated system may be able to re-set the timing of events. You want an uninterruptable (battery backup) power supply for the controllers, so they stay set properly. Power mains would need a lot bigger battery.
F-e posted about subsystems, getting them running, and going from there. That is how I am doing my buildout, and I will offer my thoughts. I will have separate light controller channel for each tent, a fan controller for each, and timer-controlled automated drip to waste irrigation system in each. The tents have separate air exhausts to outside with temp or humidity controllers. The controllers are in an adjacent room for stealth. CO2, temp, Rh data loggers in each tent.
Something to tie these systems together would be nice, but for now that is the grower.
This may exist... I would like to be able to control my watering to soil moisture, or lights, or whatever the fuck else, cause I know nothing about growing dope. My water is controlled by one of those second interval timers f-e mentioned. 12 gallon supply, 4 gallon waste-water collection each, in my case. F-e, what water filter on 1/2" tubing?
To maximize the chance of getting good quality, by not having to open the tent later in flowering much at all, should help, and thus would be a good goal.
Oh yeah, one more sub-system. Figure out how to integrate camera channels with a view of the plants from inside the tents, using a video security system (I have not done this - yet). Cam looking at water levels in the reservoir and waste jugs... If the video controller DVR is connected to the internet, you can get live access and motion alerts through a smartphone, remotely. Someone in your spot when you are not there is nice to know.
Me no likey being spied on by the internet, so I want to pull up the feeds and watch it from my desk here in the office. I will run a HDMI video feed to my tee vee there. Wireless mouse to the hidden VCR. Stealth look at the plants and not disturb the room. Xvim, cheap and good. Plug it to the internet and you have remote viewing, nywhere.
https://www.amazon.com/Security-Outdoor-Pre-Install-Recorder-Surveillance/dp/B07MZPV6BW
There is no stopping... Who doesn't want an IR thermal cam looking directly down at the tops, and a remote PAR meter looking up from the tops, so the lights can be adjusted? Integrate a remote cam for the security system. I wanna figure out how to raise/lower the light from outside, all at once, as the tops grow. Same for the PAR meter. It is probably all already for sale.
One more thing to consider is recovery from a power interruption. An integrated system may be able to re-set the timing of events. You want an uninterruptable (battery backup) power supply for the controllers, so they stay set properly. Power mains would need a lot bigger battery.
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stoner posting...
As a newb you may want to skip the CO2 and ideas about not looking. I sometimes go a week without looking and after mid flower it's never pretty. Even with 50% runoff and tight environmental control there are still no two crops the same. You really must look and a camera system to do this would need to be almost mobile to get right up to everything. Little rashes on random leaves need scanning for by eye really. Commercially you have certain losses in mind but for quality you can't just look through a window. You need to get in there.
Serious, if you do just one thing, it's forget co2. Ventilate instead. Global co2 levels can support those seed claims of 650g per meter. In 20 years when you can hit those numbers every time, then turn up the wick with co2 and be prepared to change everything and look even more often. If you can utilise it..
Serious, if you do just one thing, it's forget co2. Ventilate instead. Global co2 levels can support those seed claims of 650g per meter. In 20 years when you can hit those numbers every time, then turn up the wick with co2 and be prepared to change everything and look even more often. If you can utilise it..
CO2 data logger, just to know what is going on. I realize I will need to get in there, just want to minimize the contamination risk. I am going to scrog, which will require me to get in there to train.
I found a bag filter to enclose the whole irrigation pump on amazon.
I found a bag filter to enclose the whole irrigation pump on amazon.
