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- #21
odam2k
Well-Known Member
I don't run Linux, so not familiar with the packages available, but I'd install the latest version... You want the server and the workbench client software.
Grow Room Automation In General
- Thread starter odam2k
- Start date
DrewT
Well-Known Member
@drummer69 glad to see you taking a stab at this! I'll contribute some general feedback (absolutely just an opinion) on some of your technical questions:
AVR microcontrollers like the ATmega series are great little devices but they present a unique challenge to the development life-cycle. Coding on AVR is pretty much assembly / C / C++ land. Unless you're planning to make projects very similar to example projects (available in the Arduino IDE) you'll quickly get into the deep end with memory management and library support challenges.
Recently, there has been decent work done to bring MicroPython to more powerful MCUs like the ESP-12 and ESP-32. Python is arguably much easier to learn then C/C++ and you avoid having to deal with much of the memory management and library support issues that make AVR platforms a greater challenge to work with.
I consider this an excellent comparison that might better explain the differences.
A quick note about Raspberry Pi. That platform is really cool but there are some drawbacks that come with it.
AVR microcontrollers like the ATmega series are great little devices but they present a unique challenge to the development life-cycle. Coding on AVR is pretty much assembly / C / C++ land. Unless you're planning to make projects very similar to example projects (available in the Arduino IDE) you'll quickly get into the deep end with memory management and library support challenges.
Recently, there has been decent work done to bring MicroPython to more powerful MCUs like the ESP-12 and ESP-32. Python is arguably much easier to learn then C/C++ and you avoid having to deal with much of the memory management and library support issues that make AVR platforms a greater challenge to work with.
I consider this an excellent comparison that might better explain the differences.
A quick note about Raspberry Pi. That platform is really cool but there are some drawbacks that come with it.
- Local storage is provided by an external SD card and it is well known that this design is a source of OS corruption over time. Worst case scenario you'd end up migrating away from it like other projects have.
- You pay for things on the RPI that you may not need. HDMI display outputs, 4 usb ports, 40 GPIO pins? I don't need these for almost all of my projects and I would personally prefer to reduce complexity and cost of the components I use.
- AVR micro-controllers, programmed in C++, for simple sensors and mechanical controls (lets call them component modules).
- ESP based micro-controllers, running MicroPython, to aggregate and manage scheduling + data reporting of component modules (lets call these module hubs)
- OrangePi or upcoming RPI4 based systems, running Linux + python/django/mysql, to provide system wide management of module hubs and serve as cloud gateway/api extensions.
Ok I have got mysql installed on my linux laptop and will locate and start reading along with the awesome Odam2k report
I am soooo newbie to this coding stuff LOL wishing I could do it in Ladder diagram or STL lol.. OK OK just kidding I am going to try to learn this stuff I swear
I am soooo newbie to this coding stuff LOL wishing I could do it in Ladder diagram or STL lol.. OK OK just kidding I am going to try to learn this stuff I swear
- Thread starter
- #25
odam2k
Well-Known Member
Well, you'll get to learn c++, html, and Sql... Where to start?
that is the question LOl and in my non existent free time I have to remodel my grow areas as well
prob 2 days of electrical and a day of pluming not to mention I have to tear the whole ceiling down to structure because of roof leaks and can't fix those till spring
so at the moment I am limited to what and where to do stuff in the dry zones of the room
prob 2 days of electrical and a day of pluming not to mention I have to tear the whole ceiling down to structure because of roof leaks and can't fix those till spring
so at the moment I am limited to what and where to do stuff in the dry zones of the room
DrewT
Well-Known Member
@drummer69 Have you gotten clear what you're trying to achieve? And I mean specifically! I'd gladly give you my 2cents including suggested hardware and free resources (videos, tutorial) to kick things off. Ideally you dont have to waste time doing something I've already done unless you really want to do it!
Latitude17
Well-Known Member
@drummer69 consider using something like VMWare and install windows on a virtual image? Wouldn't require you to scrap linux at that point.
It only goes downhill from here
It only goes downhill from here
I think goals are important. I've been working on mine 1) Safety (think fire, flood and mold) 2) Security (no one should find out about it unless I want them to) 3) Reliability (don't kill the plants) 4) Quality (have a nice finished product)
Because of Security, I chose to make my grow area in the attic. This has been real challenge for space, I'm using a 36x18 inch tents, the 18 inch part makes it possible to fit between the studs. With 2 tents I have one for veg and one for flower. Having 3 plants in each tent works out fine because my state has a 6 plant limit. Now the hard part is temperature control. I'm thinking about adding a 3rd tent to put a small radiant heater, like one for under desk at an office (200 watts), a dehumidifier and some sort of a/c in. Then circulate the air between the 3 tents. This is where automation comes in. Just like in an office, I plan to mix in outside air if necessary (low CO2), or instead of turning on the dehumidifier or A/C if the outside air is the right temperature.
Now the real kicker is that occasionally I will go on long trips and need the system to work without me for up to 3 weeks. Keeping a flowering plant watered might be too much for long trips, I might just take clones and use both tents for veg with smaller plants to keep the watering requirements down.
I'm curious if anyone else has found them self in the same boat as me, especially the 3 week vacation part.
So far I've been playing around with arduino with different sensors for the last month. It is taking a lot longer than I would have thought because I keep missing something and have to order it then wait. My current arduino has 6 analog pins, but it turns out only 4 can be used if I use I2C. I didn't notice that part before. Now I'm waiting for the Mega board.
I grow in soil. My plans are to monitor soil moisture, run off, CO2, light, inside temp/humid, outside temp/humid and water tank level for automatic watering. I plan to control A/C, dehumidifier, fan to circulate fresh air, water pumps, heater, heating pads and lights.
The system will have a default configuration but will pull configuration changes from the server. It will also log conditions hourly to the server. And it will log anything it does, like when it turns something on and why it did that.
After tinkering for about a month with the code, I'm at 2000 lines of code in 21 files (I like to keep the code specific to a sensor in its own file). I have starting testing and hope to have this monitoring in a tent in the next couple of weeks, without automatic watering. Getting the watering to work well is my biggest concern.
Because of Security, I chose to make my grow area in the attic. This has been real challenge for space, I'm using a 36x18 inch tents, the 18 inch part makes it possible to fit between the studs. With 2 tents I have one for veg and one for flower. Having 3 plants in each tent works out fine because my state has a 6 plant limit. Now the hard part is temperature control. I'm thinking about adding a 3rd tent to put a small radiant heater, like one for under desk at an office (200 watts), a dehumidifier and some sort of a/c in. Then circulate the air between the 3 tents. This is where automation comes in. Just like in an office, I plan to mix in outside air if necessary (low CO2), or instead of turning on the dehumidifier or A/C if the outside air is the right temperature.
Now the real kicker is that occasionally I will go on long trips and need the system to work without me for up to 3 weeks. Keeping a flowering plant watered might be too much for long trips, I might just take clones and use both tents for veg with smaller plants to keep the watering requirements down.
I'm curious if anyone else has found them self in the same boat as me, especially the 3 week vacation part.
So far I've been playing around with arduino with different sensors for the last month. It is taking a lot longer than I would have thought because I keep missing something and have to order it then wait. My current arduino has 6 analog pins, but it turns out only 4 can be used if I use I2C. I didn't notice that part before. Now I'm waiting for the Mega board.
I grow in soil. My plans are to monitor soil moisture, run off, CO2, light, inside temp/humid, outside temp/humid and water tank level for automatic watering. I plan to control A/C, dehumidifier, fan to circulate fresh air, water pumps, heater, heating pads and lights.
The system will have a default configuration but will pull configuration changes from the server. It will also log conditions hourly to the server. And it will log anything it does, like when it turns something on and why it did that.
After tinkering for about a month with the code, I'm at 2000 lines of code in 21 files (I like to keep the code specific to a sensor in its own file). I have starting testing and hope to have this monitoring in a tent in the next couple of weeks, without automatic watering. Getting the watering to work well is my biggest concern.
DrewT
Well-Known Member
Howdy @bobinca, welcome to the forums! Sounds like a cool project, similar in many ways to what I'm working on. In a scenario similar to yours, I have two microcontrollers - one hosts the sensor module and another is managing power relays. I hacked a cheap smart power strip and it maintains scheduled tasks (hourly watering, circulation fan duty cycles, lights, and so forth. The sensor module monitors the environment and automatically triggers the power module when factors demand it (temperature/humidity/circulation/exhaust). What's your opinion on the ideal way to arrange the system? What is the server running and how is it communicating with sensors and external modules? I'm thinking of using OpenHAB to give me an easy graphical IFTTT editor.
@DrewT I took at look at OpenHAB and it seemed like more than what I needed. I'm already logging to a mysql server running on Linux. I got the idea to log by posting to the web via http on the arduino from Logging data to Database using Arduino Ethernet shield
Today I came across Grafana, it simply shows information by reading from a database. I added some fake data to my database and came up with this image I grabbed from the web page the graphan server displayed. It only took me a few minutes to install and config it to show this 4 temperature graph. I think this may be all I need.
Today I came across Grafana, it simply shows information by reading from a database. I added some fake data to my database and came up with this image I grabbed from the web page the graphan server displayed. It only took me a few minutes to install and config it to show this 4 temperature graph. I think this may be all I need.
Attachments
Right at the end of summer, the new management company in our apartment building decided to enforce a ban on Window Air Conditioners, mainly, it seems, due to the danger of them falling out of the window....
We went through a couple weeks of very warm temps, and my crop suffered, even the tops of my plants got all wispy... Then, luckily, the weather turned, and heat is definitely not a problem now
I know I can buy a portable air conditioner which doesn't need to hang out the window, but I'm thinking of building an enclosure for the window air con.
I envision basically a large shelf, right at window level, the full width of the open window. Leave the screen on. Set the Air Con unit on the shelf, as close to the screen as you can slide it. Leaving plenty of room around the sides and top of the air conditioner, build a frame to hold some sides and top to enclose the Air Conditioner. If you need, you could add a fan to help extract air from the box and out the window... perhaps a big box fan facing outside, between the air con and screen... Might want to leave room to be able to close a window in case of storms?
Anyhow, has anyone ever managed to do this, and it worked?
You can build an enclosure around the back of the window mount unit to make it flush mount with the window. The water is designed to drain out of the bottom of the tray so be mindful of that. A tap fitting or catch pan would keep your floor dry but you need to do something with the water. Either drain to a permanent drain or empty the pan frequently.
A box fan between the condenser and the window would likely create an unnecessary restriction. The onboard condenser fan will push enough air through a short extension. Leave the intake louvers on the back 1/3 of the housing open, or keep them totally isolated that's the inlet for the exhaust air to cool the condenser.
Latitude17
Well-Known Member
I have. The longest I've gone (so far) is 25 days; I used two 25 gallon totes, fed from A for 13 days, then flipped two valves to swap out to B for the remainder. The setup wasn't pretty and frankly I was amazed to find a healthy garden when I returned. Prior to that the longest was only 17 days, which really isn't anything since I change my res out every 14. Some folks on here have gone an entire grow without completely changing their res (@TheFrizz comes to mind) so it's not unheard of.
I want to try using something like a purified/RO reservoir (water only) and Osmocote one of these days when I get some room to play. Since I grow in 100% perlite, I think it might be a solution for people that travel for extended periods but try to maintain a grow at the same time. You won't be growing 3lb trees that way, but it's something.
An automated res-change and nutrient dosing system is my ultimate goal. So curious that nobody has stepped up to make something like that for home/hobby gardeners...
DrewT
Well-Known Member
Working on it... with off the shelf ph pens, ec pens, and liquid/power dispensers. The whole unit is designed to fit over the top of something as small as a 5 gallon bucket. There's a lot that can go wrong with a dosing system, it's a long arduous design process.
Latitude17
Well-Known Member
I've got 24 Tecan Cavro Syringe pumps with 10ml syringes (8 for veg, 16 for bloom), running off of NEMA stepper motors via Arduino right now. It's over the top. I know. But it's what I want to do, and peristaltic pumps just aren't what I want.
Someone needs to light that spark of interest back under @Skybound - he was already so far along into doing all of this stuff and had some neat ideas.
DrewT
Well-Known Member
Interesting! Why not go the standard peristaltic route? 80/160ml isn't a whole lot, you must fill them often? Are they just for topping off or fine-tuning a mix you start by hand?
Any chance you could help me find a link to older posts on the subject. I did some searched and found this, but nothing on automated nute dosing yet.
Thanks you @Latitude17 !
Latitude17
Well-Known Member
There are aspects of peristaltic's that just didn't "do it" for me (i.e. tubing flex/wear and tear, siphoning, precision). I think they have a great place in larger reservoir systems, but the average 4-8 plant hobby grower may run in to challenges when trying to get precise control over ph or nutrient dosing. I'm an OCD freak admittedly, and I'm sure they are just fine for most people out there.
Arduinos? @Skybound work?
If its bootable why are you trying to use it in Linux ?
Bootable to me means you start/turn on (from an off state) the pc with it in the drive and it boots a mini OS that can handle the install of whatever is on the disc.
