Light sensitive automated grow light



I came across this interesting concept for an automated grow light. It uses a photoresister to detect when lights get low and proceeds to turns on some red LEDs to provide the plants a few extra hours of light.

From my experience if you are growing indoors, your seedlings can use as much supplemental lighting as they can get and would recommend turning them on when there is light as well, but though still a very cool project.

This could be an interesting concept for something like a greenhouse during the fall/winter seasons though.

Via Hack-A-Day via Instrucatable

5 Responses to “Light sensitive automated grow light”

  1. Kim-free classified posting Says:

    This is a very interesting article and the automated grow light is definitely one cool innovation.


  2. Darla Says:

    I’ve never seen such as this!


  3. KIKI Says:

    Not bad. But if I’m going to put work into something is not just for fun, it better have some good return on my investment. Good for tinkering.


  4. Phil Winder Says:

    Just to give you and your readers the heads up, I came accross this paper the other day [Via here in the comments] that details how pulsing the light at 720Hz with a duty of 50% can stimulate increased plant growth by 200%! It doesn’t provide any reasoning why it occurs, but there is good proof.Avid reader, Phil


  5. The Cheap Vegetable Gardener Says:

    KIKI, I agree I definitely would not create this design as it is today but an interesting idea to how to allow correct timing on light supplementation.Phil Winder, I have heard this before but never tried myself. LEDs would be great candidates for this since they are resilient towards the frequent on/off. Can’t wait until I can get my summer plants out of my grow box so I can do some experimentation.


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