Computerized grow box update
15.2 years ago cilantro, computer, computer power control, cucumbers, electronics, indoor growbox, tomato
Haven’t mentioned the computerized grow box for a while, so think it is a good time for an update. The moisture sensor corroded away, but have plans to make a much more beefier one. With the exception of the hard drive failure, the basic functionality of the computerized grow box has been excellent and the plants have been thriving. The only physical improvement I have made is adding some particle board to the top and side (salvaged from packaging material from some furniture we ordered) of the grow box. This helps retain heat and allows the access panel to stay put without requiring tape and/or bags of coffee grounds propped against it. I also mounted the LCD panel securely to the top of the box.
They say as your paycheck increases, somehow your expenses follow suit. I have a feeling same concept applies for grow boxes. As the computerized grow box is about four times bigger than my PC grow box it has quickly getting pretty crowded waiting for the time I can move my summer vegetables outside. I am planning on doing some reorganization this weekend to clean things up a little bit but still going to be pretty tight quarters.
The current inventory in the grow box are 12 tomato plants (was 18 but gave six away at a recent gardening talk), 2 cucumber plants (had one fatality from Peat/WonderSoil experiment, looks like Peat lost), 6 pepper plants (need transplanting), and a cilantro plant which was the source of my first harvest of the year.
Now just hoping Punxsutawney Phil is wrong and we really don’t have six more weeks of winter, though with the snow we got two days ago and the current temperature outside, I think he might be right.
Tags: cheap, cilantro, coffee grounds, garden seeds, growbox, outdoor plants, pepper plants, tomato plants, vegetables
Updated time-lapse video of strawberries growing in growbox
15.3 years ago computer, indoor growbox, strawberries
Here is the strawberries growing after 2 weeks in the grow box. Looks like I may need to get some Q-tips out and do some manual pollination if I want to see berries. I feel so dirty…
Tags: growbox, strawberry plants
Why you should check on your grow box (especially if it is computerized)
15.3 years ago blueberry, computer, cucumbers, indoor growbox, strawberries
My day job is in software development, so of course it came to mind that software/hardware can fail while I was making my computerized grow box. During its inception, I would check on it daily physically or remotely to make sure all was well. After a couple weeks of this it was so stable that I started to not check quite as often. Though in my mind there was never any question of if it would crash, it was when. Well that answer came tonight when I decided to check on my strawberries, cucumbers, and blueberry plant (trying to propagate a blueberry plant damaged in recent snow storm)
I noticed the lights were out and turned on the LCD display to see “Unable to find operating system.” Before anyone screams “you should have used Linux”, the problem was completely hardware related caused by a failed hard drive (not even the one with the operating system). Unfortunately this was the drive that had the SQL database, so hopefully I will be able to savage some of the data. Once I got the machine to boot up I saw the temperature was down to 38 degrees (poor little cucumber plants) but fortunately in the time it took to write this post it warmed up to 47.3F 57.7F, so hopefully the cucumbers will feel better in the morning.
Tonight I am adding one more item to my software to do list, a Vista Gadget to monitor the health of the grow box to ensure it is up and running. This was also a good time to ask the mental question, “When was the last time I backed up my code?” Code now backed up and am wondering why I am breaking my cardinal rule of always having source control even with a single developer.
Tags: cheap, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
Computer controlled grow box – Part 1
15.4 years ago cheap, computer, electronics, indoor growbox, PC thermometer
The Idea and Design
My PC Grow box was very effective though it did have some shortcomings along with my desire for tinkering caused me to create a new version code named “Project Everbearing” after the test subjects for the project, several Everbearing strawberry plants I propagated from my garden last Summer/Fall. The specific shortcomings I wanted to overcome were temperature control and limited size. My grow box has to live in my garage so on cold nights the temperatures can fall low enough to kill my summer seedlings (tomatoes/cucumbers) Size is an easy fix just make it bigger though it is more difficult to keep a larger grow box warm and still well lit.�
My solution to both of these problems was the addition of a computer to the system. First computers generate heat, using this along with computer controlled fans and incandescent lights (heater) allow me to regulate the heat to my desired levels. This is the point a normal person may have just stopped, but I am far from normal and decided a few more features, which I will explain more below.
The Structure and Insulation
First comes the structure, upon inheriting a set of shelves from my sister, we ran out of room for some of our existing storage shelves (see above), though we used the buckets to store loose toys on our new shelves we had the structure of the old one sitting in the garage for some time. After many passes by in the garage not knowing what do do with this shell, it finally came to me that this would be perfect for my new grow box, (Reduce/Reuse/Recycle) in action. The only customization required was the removal of a couple of the wooden dowels and I was ready to add some hardware. Of course you could do the same thing with an old bookshelf, cabinet or just with construct your own frame with a 12”X1”X8’ foot board cut in two along with two 1”X1”X8’ pieces of lumber cut into two. Screw one 1”X1” in each corner and should should have a pretty solid frame. For the top I used pegboard mainly because I bought a 4’ by 8’ sheet when I only needed half of it but worked really good to use zip-ties to secure various components and provides decent airflow between the computer and growing areas.
Second comes insulation, after some not so careful calculations and measurements I determined I could cover the 3 exposed areas with 2 sheets of 2’ by 4’ sheets of insulating Styrofoam. I glued and taped (duct tape of course) the Styrofoam which was cut using a utility knife and straightedge to cut to size making sure I made the top straight and flush. I then created an exactly copy of the other side and one more piece for the top. Using a long strip of duct tape I created a hinge for the top and glued side of the box. The last piece I simply fit into place using a tool box to ensure a tight fit but also allows easy access to plants when needed.
The Lighting
I went cheap on the lighting taking from the success of the PC grow box I decided to go with a similar setup using $2.00 home depot wired sockets hooked up to an couple old computer power cords. I went with two 24 watt CFL bulbs and one incandescent bulb. Though the incandescent is not as efficient and the CLFs it does provide a full spectrum of light and a little extra heat which the box can use in the many times cold garage where it lives. The CFLs and incandescent exist on two separate circuits so they can be controlled independently by the software.
The Software — Grow box brains
Now I know all of this could be done with a Basic Stamp or Arduino pretty easy, but I wanted the ability to track history and have a decent user interface to look at, so I wrote a windows form application using C#. To cover the basic functionality of temperature control I used the parallel port outputs hooked up to the computer’s parallel port to give the software the ability to turn the lights on and off. By configuring a “sunset” and “sunrise” time which I am in complete control over the lights will turn on and off as appropriate. I added some logic to ensure the plants stay at a comfortable temperature (thresholds configurable) by turning on the incandescent bulb when it is too cold and an exhaust fan when it gets too hot. In order to allow the computer to know these temperatures I used a PS2 controller to create two temperature sensors one for the area the plants are growing and another for the top area where the CPU resides (computer was too old to have onboard temperature sensor)
My daughter thought it would be cool if we have some sort of automatic watering system. I agreed, so I added a moisture sensor and created an algorithm to periodically check the moisture level and activate a water pump to add water until it reaches the specified moisture level. I still need to buy and hookup the pump but coding portion is complete and tested.
I live in the Pacific Northwest it rains a lot and can get cold in the evenings and I don’t want to trek out to check on my plants. solved this by adding the computer to my Wi-Fi network now I can take look at them by connecting to the machine wirelessly and see how they are doing through it’s webcam. I also take periodic pictures of the plants so I can create cool time-lapse videos of progress like the one below. I also have the ability to browse through pictures taken at specific time periods.
Finally to store all of this data I installed SQL Server 2005 Express (free) which allows me to track historical data of the conditions and images over time. If you have data, you definitely need some graphs. Being too lazy to do this graphic work I leveraged ZedGraph (free) to allow some visual tracking of temperatures and moisture content.
Features for future versions (Beta 2?)
- Finish automated watering
- Add automated red LED lights for flowering stage
- Install LCD Panel
- Make box look better (real door which does not require tape to open/close)
- Create single USB controller for lights/sensors
- Better/additional camera
Video of grow box “booting” up, personally I like the flashing lights when the computer sends signal through the parrallel port. If you are old enough to ever have a printer that used a parallel port this is when it would make its annoying sound letting you know it was alive.
Updates:
Computerized Grow Box Update #1
Tags: arduino, cheap, garden seeds, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, tomato plants, vegetables
