Aspen's Alaskan Purple In Soil - 2022
- Thread starter AspenCultivator
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #202
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Hi everyone! We're 2 days passed the transplant on the blueberries and I'm not seeing any death or problems, so that's really good. I'm actually seeing additional growth, maybe a touch slower than before, but it's there. One thing though is #1 looks pretty hungry, but the reservoirs are still only at 1/2 full. They haven't dropped since they were transplanted. I really, really don't want to top water them, but they're also not supposed to have full reservoirs at this current stage. What would you do? Top feed a small amount, say a single pint? Or top off her res with feed? Thanks for any help.
I think I'm going to remove blueberry #3. I'm already biting off a lot by trying to get the blueberries and the AP to flower at the same time, and I can already see a space issue. I haven't removed her yet, but I'm also not taking pics of her and should have watered her yesterday but didn't. I just don't have the room, it was 2+ year old seed, and I have fresh seeds and fresh strains waiting in the fridge. Nah, I'm gonna toss her on the compost pile after this post. Decision made! lol
Next, the alaskan purple is happily growing now. She's 53 days old as of today and showing us she's female, which we knew with feminized seed. The smell in the tent dropped when I topped her, but now it's back and that didn't take very long at all. I'm waiting for her to require water every day before I up-pot her into her final home, a 1 gallon container. She's going to be kept as a soil grow and will be flipped whenever the blueberries are ready.
Training will start soon, just need a bit more length on her shoots.
As you can see everything is moving right along which is nice to see finally. The blueberries don't seem to be too affected by the transplant which is good. As they drill their roots down in the next week or so we should really see some progress.
Thanks for stopping by!
I think I'm going to remove blueberry #3. I'm already biting off a lot by trying to get the blueberries and the AP to flower at the same time, and I can already see a space issue. I haven't removed her yet, but I'm also not taking pics of her and should have watered her yesterday but didn't. I just don't have the room, it was 2+ year old seed, and I have fresh seeds and fresh strains waiting in the fridge. Nah, I'm gonna toss her on the compost pile after this post. Decision made! lol
Next, the alaskan purple is happily growing now. She's 53 days old as of today and showing us she's female, which we knew with feminized seed. The smell in the tent dropped when I topped her, but now it's back and that didn't take very long at all. I'm waiting for her to require water every day before I up-pot her into her final home, a 1 gallon container. She's going to be kept as a soil grow and will be flipped whenever the blueberries are ready.
Training will start soon, just need a bit more length on her shoots.
As you can see everything is moving right along which is nice to see finally. The blueberries don't seem to be too affected by the transplant which is good. As they drill their roots down in the next week or so we should really see some progress.
Thanks for stopping by!
- Thread starter
- #203
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Tent Update - It's a long one
This post has nothing to do with the plants so feel free to skip it! This is only to document my technical efforts to automate the grow tent as much as I possibly can. If you're interested, sweet! Stick around for this update. Otherwise I'll see you in the next post!
As a recap I'm using my own server to host a system called Home Assistant. I use this throughout my home to control LED lights, my ac/furnace, wifi plugs, etc etc. I'm also using it in the grow tent. Currently my lights, humidifier, and exhaust fan are being controlled by Home Assistant.
The temp and humidity is checked every 1 minute and if humidity falls below my range, the humidifier turns on. Once it reached the max, it turns off. Every hour, on the hour, the exhaust fan runs for 5 minutes to cycle the air in the tent. It also overrides the humidifier (if it's running) so I'm not running them both at the same time.
This system has been wonderful and a really hands off way to keep an ideal environment. However, I have developed a problem that needs solved: tent state when the door is open. Right now I have a button I press on a dashboard (reachable via laptop, phone, or tablet) that puts the tent in "override mode" meaning the humidifier doesn't run. Why run the humidifier with the door open? It does nothing, all the humidity exits via the door. So I override the automation (manually) by pressing a button. What's the issue here? Sometimes I'm so high I forget to turn the override button off. Okay okay, it happens so frequently I need a solution.
Secondly, the exhaust fan uses my override button to control the humidifier. This means that 5 minutes after the top of every hour the override button is automatically turned off and the readings on the environment continue. And since the door was open, it needs humidity, so the humidifier always turns on right after the air is cycled. This includes when the tent is open. I hope I've made it clear: I hit a button on a dashboard to tell the tent "stop automating things". When I'm done in there, I forget to hit the button again to tell it to take over the environment for me. Not only this, but when the exhaust fan automation runs it resets that override button. So if I'm in the tent at 5 minutes passed the hour (which does happen) the humidifier kicks on.
Then I have to stop what I'm doing, find my phone/tablet or go to my laptop and override the system again to turn it off. I'm entirely too lazy for this (which is why I always forget to turn the override off in the first place) so here's my solution.
Front view:
Rear view:
The idea is to sense when the tent door is open. I thought a good bit on 'how' am I going to sense this? I could do a magnet and a reed switch (think window or door sensor) but there's nothing to attach the magnet to based on the construction of my particular tent. A microswitch is out of the question because the tent walls and door are not rigid enough to rig something to the zipper itself. So I concluded distance is going to be the best way to accomplish this, and I can do that with an HC-SR4 ultrasonic sensor. This board has two sonic cylinders on the front, one which pulses ultrasounds and the other which is to receive them after the signal is bounced off of something. This gives us distance to objects. This particular sensor can only sense a maximum of 2 meters away (in my testing I couldn't even get that, but don't need it...more on this in a sec).
Originally I thought of a small case to hang at the back of the tent, but in this 3'x3' tent, there's too much going on in between the door and the location of the sensor (light hangers mostly for now, but when the plants get big everything will be in the way) so I thought hmm, why not place it 'close' to the door to indicate a closed state. You see this sensor has a 'max' of 6' so when you try to take a reading beyond the sensor's timeout value it comes back as 'unknown'. This is super simple to setup in home assistant so as to say "If the distance of this sensor is 0.1m or less, the tent door is closed, control the environmentals" and then we also have "If the distance of this sensor is unknown, the tent door is open, stop controlling the environmentals.
Great, we have the sensor, now we need a wifi board and there's a plethora of them on the internet that utilize the ESP framework. I happen to have a shit ton of D1 Minis (ESP8266) laying around so the sensor is plugged into that, and then that's plugged into the wall. That's all the wiring needed.
Alrighty after spending some time designing and measuring, and 4.5 hours of printing later, we have this:
I needed a way to install the bracket without removing the tent wall/ceiling (and also to be able to print without supports) so the tube connectors were made to be installed with a single screw. Anywhere you see a screw I've installed a knurled threaded brass sleeve for it to screw in to. These are simple to install by getting them lined up and using a hot soldering iron to heat the sleeve, which then melts the plastic a bit allowing the sleeve to be installed. Once the plastic is cooled the brass doesn't move at all and leaves me with a solid mounting point to screw in to.
This bracket puts the sensor an inch below the zipper line and an inch away from the door when the door is closed. The sensor takes its reading every 2 seconds (which is configurable) so I have a near-immediate response when I open the door and if the humidifier is on or I'm currently in an air cycle it'll pause those states and not resume them again until the door is closed.
Whew, this was a long one! But I know when I was just learning about all this stuff googling was the only way to learn. So I want to provide walls of details to try to answer any initial questions or provide inspiration so anyone can get something like this set up! Is it needed? Absolutely not, but it's fun to put together and now I have a hands-off way of detecting when the tent door is open. It's literally only for my laziness, but that's a good excuse in my book to put in the effort!
This post has nothing to do with the plants so feel free to skip it! This is only to document my technical efforts to automate the grow tent as much as I possibly can. If you're interested, sweet! Stick around for this update. Otherwise I'll see you in the next post!
As a recap I'm using my own server to host a system called Home Assistant. I use this throughout my home to control LED lights, my ac/furnace, wifi plugs, etc etc. I'm also using it in the grow tent. Currently my lights, humidifier, and exhaust fan are being controlled by Home Assistant.
The temp and humidity is checked every 1 minute and if humidity falls below my range, the humidifier turns on. Once it reached the max, it turns off. Every hour, on the hour, the exhaust fan runs for 5 minutes to cycle the air in the tent. It also overrides the humidifier (if it's running) so I'm not running them both at the same time.
This system has been wonderful and a really hands off way to keep an ideal environment. However, I have developed a problem that needs solved: tent state when the door is open. Right now I have a button I press on a dashboard (reachable via laptop, phone, or tablet) that puts the tent in "override mode" meaning the humidifier doesn't run. Why run the humidifier with the door open? It does nothing, all the humidity exits via the door. So I override the automation (manually) by pressing a button. What's the issue here? Sometimes I'm so high I forget to turn the override button off. Okay okay, it happens so frequently I need a solution.
Secondly, the exhaust fan uses my override button to control the humidifier. This means that 5 minutes after the top of every hour the override button is automatically turned off and the readings on the environment continue. And since the door was open, it needs humidity, so the humidifier always turns on right after the air is cycled. This includes when the tent is open. I hope I've made it clear: I hit a button on a dashboard to tell the tent "stop automating things". When I'm done in there, I forget to hit the button again to tell it to take over the environment for me. Not only this, but when the exhaust fan automation runs it resets that override button. So if I'm in the tent at 5 minutes passed the hour (which does happen) the humidifier kicks on.
Then I have to stop what I'm doing, find my phone/tablet or go to my laptop and override the system again to turn it off. I'm entirely too lazy for this (which is why I always forget to turn the override off in the first place) so here's my solution.
Front view:
Rear view:
The idea is to sense when the tent door is open. I thought a good bit on 'how' am I going to sense this? I could do a magnet and a reed switch (think window or door sensor) but there's nothing to attach the magnet to based on the construction of my particular tent. A microswitch is out of the question because the tent walls and door are not rigid enough to rig something to the zipper itself. So I concluded distance is going to be the best way to accomplish this, and I can do that with an HC-SR4 ultrasonic sensor. This board has two sonic cylinders on the front, one which pulses ultrasounds and the other which is to receive them after the signal is bounced off of something. This gives us distance to objects. This particular sensor can only sense a maximum of 2 meters away (in my testing I couldn't even get that, but don't need it...more on this in a sec).
Originally I thought of a small case to hang at the back of the tent, but in this 3'x3' tent, there's too much going on in between the door and the location of the sensor (light hangers mostly for now, but when the plants get big everything will be in the way) so I thought hmm, why not place it 'close' to the door to indicate a closed state. You see this sensor has a 'max' of 6' so when you try to take a reading beyond the sensor's timeout value it comes back as 'unknown'. This is super simple to setup in home assistant so as to say "If the distance of this sensor is 0.1m or less, the tent door is closed, control the environmentals" and then we also have "If the distance of this sensor is unknown, the tent door is open, stop controlling the environmentals.
Great, we have the sensor, now we need a wifi board and there's a plethora of them on the internet that utilize the ESP framework. I happen to have a shit ton of D1 Minis (ESP8266) laying around so the sensor is plugged into that, and then that's plugged into the wall. That's all the wiring needed.
Alrighty after spending some time designing and measuring, and 4.5 hours of printing later, we have this:
I needed a way to install the bracket without removing the tent wall/ceiling (and also to be able to print without supports) so the tube connectors were made to be installed with a single screw. Anywhere you see a screw I've installed a knurled threaded brass sleeve for it to screw in to. These are simple to install by getting them lined up and using a hot soldering iron to heat the sleeve, which then melts the plastic a bit allowing the sleeve to be installed. Once the plastic is cooled the brass doesn't move at all and leaves me with a solid mounting point to screw in to.
This bracket puts the sensor an inch below the zipper line and an inch away from the door when the door is closed. The sensor takes its reading every 2 seconds (which is configurable) so I have a near-immediate response when I open the door and if the humidifier is on or I'm currently in an air cycle it'll pause those states and not resume them again until the door is closed.
Whew, this was a long one! But I know when I was just learning about all this stuff googling was the only way to learn. So I want to provide walls of details to try to answer any initial questions or provide inspiration so anyone can get something like this set up! Is it needed? Absolutely not, but it's fun to put together and now I have a hands-off way of detecting when the tent door is open. It's literally only for my laziness, but that's a good excuse in my book to put in the effort!
I would've just put a note on the outside of the tent door reminding me to turn off the override, lol!
Your way is a much better long term solution though, especially with your automated system.
Do you think Vivosun would be interested in something like this for their growhub system?
Your way is a much better long term solution though, especially with your automated system.
Do you think Vivosun would be interested in something like this for their growhub system?
- Thread starter
- #205
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Lol, and I did that for a time but what really started rustling my jimmies was when I'm in there inspecting, feeding, whatever and the exhaust fan comes on, then in 5 mins goes off, and the humidifier comes on. Then I had to go find a device to turn it off and get back to what I was doing. That's when I knew it was time to figure out how to automate my automations, heh.
As for Vivosun, that's a good question. I don't know what their system can do and if a door sensor would add to or just complicate their stuff. Maybe I'll look into it more and reach out to them.
Maybe @LKABudMan would be able to give you some input on that? He's using the growhub system now.
- Thread starter
- #207
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Short and sweet update today. The alaskan purple was ready for water. It's been 4 days since she was last fed so she got plain PH 6.3 water with a bit of calmag for a PPM of 307. She took 90ml of water before showing a bit of runoff. She looks like a clone at this point, her nodes are starting to offset.
As for the blueberries their leaves are perked right up and I see their 5th node coming in where I didn't see that yesterday. Their reservoirs are still at half full. Both of them are starting to lighten up so I'm going to post this question in the SIP club thread, but I'd like to know if they should be top fed this one time or if I should fill their reservoirs all the way up with feed.
And lastly I pulled blueberry #3 but was careful when I did it so I could get a good look at the two different root systems. I think starting off in a solo SIP was a huge success, because it looks like she has a majority of water roots there at the bottom of the cup which from what I've read is what you want to see.
Thanks for stopping by! If anyone has an opinion on top feeding or filling the blueberry reservoirs full please let me know!
As for the blueberries their leaves are perked right up and I see their 5th node coming in where I didn't see that yesterday. Their reservoirs are still at half full. Both of them are starting to lighten up so I'm going to post this question in the SIP club thread, but I'd like to know if they should be top fed this one time or if I should fill their reservoirs all the way up with feed.
And lastly I pulled blueberry #3 but was careful when I did it so I could get a good look at the two different root systems. I think starting off in a solo SIP was a huge success, because it looks like she has a majority of water roots there at the bottom of the cup which from what I've read is what you want to see.
Thanks for stopping by! If anyone has an opinion on top feeding or filling the blueberry reservoirs full please let me know!
- Thread starter
- #208
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Alright I got an answer in the SIP club thread and that was to feed from the top until her roots hit the res. So they both got week 2 of the FF nute schedule. PH 6.3, PPM 930. Only mixed up 1/4 gallon, and they both got a pint each directly around the stem.
UrbanGardner
Well-Known Member
Tent Update - It's a long one
This post has nothing to do with the plants so feel free to skip it! This is only to document my technical efforts to automate the grow tent as much as I possibly can. If you're interested, sweet! Stick around for this update. Otherwise I'll see you in the next post!
As a recap I'm using my own server to host a system called Home Assistant. I use this throughout my home to control LED lights, my ac/furnace, wifi plugs, etc etc. I'm also using it in the grow tent. Currently my lights, humidifier, and exhaust fan are being controlled by Home Assistant.
The temp and humidity is checked every 1 minute and if humidity falls below my range, the humidifier turns on. Once it reached the max, it turns off. Every hour, on the hour, the exhaust fan runs for 5 minutes to cycle the air in the tent. It also overrides the humidifier (if it's running) so I'm not running them both at the same time.
This system has been wonderful and a really hands off way to keep an ideal environment. However, I have developed a problem that needs solved: tent state when the door is open. Right now I have a button I press on a dashboard (reachable via laptop, phone, or tablet) that puts the tent in "override mode" meaning the humidifier doesn't run. Why run the humidifier with the door open? It does nothing, all the humidity exits via the door. So I override the automation (manually) by pressing a button. What's the issue here? Sometimes I'm so high I forget to turn the override button off. Okay okay, it happens so frequently I need a solution.
Secondly, the exhaust fan uses my override button to control the humidifier. This means that 5 minutes after the top of every hour the override button is automatically turned off and the readings on the environment continue. And since the door was open, it needs humidity, so the humidifier always turns on right after the air is cycled. This includes when the tent is open. I hope I've made it clear: I hit a button on a dashboard to tell the tent "stop automating things". When I'm done in there, I forget to hit the button again to tell it to take over the environment for me. Not only this, but when the exhaust fan automation runs it resets that override button. So if I'm in the tent at 5 minutes passed the hour (which does happen) the humidifier kicks on.
Then I have to stop what I'm doing, find my phone/tablet or go to my laptop and override the system again to turn it off. I'm entirely too lazy for this (which is why I always forget to turn the override off in the first place) so here's my solution.
Front view:
Rear view:
The idea is to sense when the tent door is open. I thought a good bit on 'how' am I going to sense this? I could do a magnet and a reed switch (think window or door sensor) but there's nothing to attach the magnet to based on the construction of my particular tent. A microswitch is out of the question because the tent walls and door are not rigid enough to rig something to the zipper itself. So I concluded distance is going to be the best way to accomplish this, and I can do that with an HC-SR4 ultrasonic sensor. This board has two sonic cylinders on the front, one which pulses ultrasounds and the other which is to receive them after the signal is bounced off of something. This gives us distance to objects. This particular sensor can only sense a maximum of 2 meters away (in my testing I couldn't even get that, but don't need it...more on this in a sec).
Originally I thought of a small case to hang at the back of the tent, but in this 3'x3' tent, there's too much going on in between the door and the location of the sensor (light hangers mostly for now, but when the plants get big everything will be in the way) so I thought hmm, why not place it 'close' to the door to indicate a closed state. You see this sensor has a 'max' of 6' so when you try to take a reading beyond the sensor's timeout value it comes back as 'unknown'. This is super simple to setup in home assistant so as to say "If the distance of this sensor is 0.1m or less, the tent door is closed, control the environmentals" and then we also have "If the distance of this sensor is unknown, the tent door is open, stop controlling the environmentals.
Great, we have the sensor, now we need a wifi board and there's a plethora of them on the internet that utilize the ESP framework. I happen to have a shit ton of D1 Minis (ESP8266) laying around so the sensor is plugged into that, and then that's plugged into the wall. That's all the wiring needed.
Alrighty after spending some time designing and measuring, and 4.5 hours of printing later, we have this:
I needed a way to install the bracket without removing the tent wall/ceiling (and also to be able to print without supports) so the tube connectors were made to be installed with a single screw. Anywhere you see a screw I've installed a knurled threaded brass sleeve for it to screw in to. These are simple to install by getting them lined up and using a hot soldering iron to heat the sleeve, which then melts the plastic a bit allowing the sleeve to be installed. Once the plastic is cooled the brass doesn't move at all and leaves me with a solid mounting point to screw in to.
This bracket puts the sensor an inch below the zipper line and an inch away from the door when the door is closed. The sensor takes its reading every 2 seconds (which is configurable) so I have a near-immediate response when I open the door and if the humidifier is on or I'm currently in an air cycle it'll pause those states and not resume them again until the door is closed.
Whew, this was a long one! But I know when I was just learning about all this stuff googling was the only way to learn. So I want to provide walls of details to try to answer any initial questions or provide inspiration so anyone can get something like this set up! Is it needed? Absolutely not, but it's fun to put together and now I have a hands-off way of detecting when the tent door is open. It's literally only for my laziness, but that's a good excuse in my book to put in the effort!
Your automation is BADASS!! I love your bracket!!
I just breadboarded an automation to monitor temperature, humidity, LUX and soil moisture. I send the data to the cloud where I can monitor it. I am testing a water valve and flow sensor to automatically water when I am away. This would be a great addition to a SIP setup (Maybe in the future for me). I am embarrassed to post these photos because I am in the early stages.
I send the data to io.adafruit.com. I built dashboards to monitor the data. You get 30 datapoints/min for free.
I would love to exchange ideas and tech on this!!
So it's inside the tent. . That would be the issues. Take one outside tent one inside to make the difference up. Cause of air flow when u open the tent changes cause all outside air rushes in. I had to do same thing. I have heat outside the tent for room temp and rh factors. I couldn't keep mine right. Till I figured out what works. Lost four plants for mold I processTent Update - It's a long one
This post has nothing to do with the plants so feel free to skip it! This is only to document my technical efforts to automate the grow tent as much as I possibly can. If you're interested, sweet! Stick around for this update. Otherwise I'll see you in the next post!
As a recap I'm using my own server to host a system called Home Assistant. I use this throughout my home to control LED lights, my ac/furnace, wifi plugs, etc etc. I'm also using it in the grow tent. Currently my lights, humidifier, and exhaust fan are being controlled by Home Assistant.
The temp and humidity is checked every 1 minute and if humidity falls below my range, the humidifier turns on. Once it reached the max, it turns off. Every hour, on the hour, the exhaust fan runs for 5 minutes to cycle the air in the tent. It also overrides the humidifier (if it's running) so I'm not running them both at the same time.
This system has been wonderful and a really hands off way to keep an ideal environment. However, I have developed a problem that needs solved: tent state when the door is open. Right now I have a button I press on a dashboard (reachable via laptop, phone, or tablet) that puts the tent in "override mode" meaning the humidifier doesn't run. Why run the humidifier with the door open? It does nothing, all the humidity exits via the door. So I override the automation (manually) by pressing a button. What's the issue here? Sometimes I'm so high I forget to turn the override button off. Okay okay, it happens so frequently I need a solution.
Secondly, the exhaust fan uses my override button to control the humidifier. This means that 5 minutes after the top of every hour the override button is automatically turned off and the readings on the environment continue. And since the door was open, it needs humidity, so the humidifier always turns on right after the air is cycled. This includes when the tent is open. I hope I've made it clear: I hit a button on a dashboard to tell the tent "stop automating things". When I'm done in there, I forget to hit the button again to tell it to take over the environment for me. Not only this, but when the exhaust fan automation runs it resets that override button. So if I'm in the tent at 5 minutes passed the hour (which does happen) the humidifier kicks on.
Then I have to stop what I'm doing, find my phone/tablet or go to my laptop and override the system again to turn it off. I'm entirely too lazy for this (which is why I always forget to turn the override off in the first place) so here's my solution.
Front view:
Rear view:
The idea is to sense when the tent door is open. I thought a good bit on 'how' am I going to sense this? I could do a magnet and a reed switch (think window or door sensor) but there's nothing to attach the magnet to based on the construction of my particular tent. A microswitch is out of the question because the tent walls and door are not rigid enough to rig something to the zipper itself. So I concluded distance is going to be the best way to accomplish this, and I can do that with an HC-SR4 ultrasonic sensor. This board has two sonic cylinders on the front, one which pulses ultrasounds and the other which is to receive them after the signal is bounced off of something. This gives us distance to objects. This particular sensor can only sense a maximum of 2 meters away (in my testing I couldn't even get that, but don't need it...more on this in a sec).
Originally I thought of a small case to hang at the back of the tent, but in this 3'x3' tent, there's too much going on in between the door and the location of the sensor (light hangers mostly for now, but when the plants get big everything will be in the way) so I thought hmm, why not place it 'close' to the door to indicate a closed state. You see this sensor has a 'max' of 6' so when you try to take a reading beyond the sensor's timeout value it comes back as 'unknown'. This is super simple to setup in home assistant so as to say "If the distance of this sensor is 0.1m or less, the tent door is closed, control the environmentals" and then we also have "If the distance of this sensor is unknown, the tent door is open, stop controlling the environmentals.
Great, we have the sensor, now we need a wifi board and there's a plethora of them on the internet that utilize the ESP framework. I happen to have a shit ton of D1 Minis (ESP8266) laying around so the sensor is plugged into that, and then that's plugged into the wall. That's all the wiring needed.
Alrighty after spending some time designing and measuring, and 4.5 hours of printing later, we have this:
I needed a way to install the bracket without removing the tent wall/ceiling (and also to be able to print without supports) so the tube connectors were made to be installed with a single screw. Anywhere you see a screw I've installed a knurled threaded brass sleeve for it to screw in to. These are simple to install by getting them lined up and using a hot soldering iron to heat the sleeve, which then melts the plastic a bit allowing the sleeve to be installed. Once the plastic is cooled the brass doesn't move at all and leaves me with a solid mounting point to screw in to.
This bracket puts the sensor an inch below the zipper line and an inch away from the door when the door is closed. The sensor takes its reading every 2 seconds (which is configurable) so I have a near-immediate response when I open the door and if the humidifier is on or I'm currently in an air cycle it'll pause those states and not resume them again until the door is closed.
Whew, this was a long one! But I know when I was just learning about all this stuff googling was the only way to learn. So I want to provide walls of details to try to answer any initial questions or provide inspiration so anyone can get something like this set up! Is it needed? Absolutely not, but it's fun to put together and now I have a hands-off way of detecting when the tent door is open. It's literally only for my laziness, but that's a good excuse in my book to put in the effort!
- Thread starter
- #211
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Hey 7! I'm not exactly sure what you mean. My goal was to turn the exhaust fan and the humidifier off when the tent door is open, and I wanted it to happen automatically. The environment is perfect when the tent door is closed: 76*F (could be warmer, admittedly, so not 'perfect' eh?) and maintains humidity between 65% and 75%. When the door is open and the humidifier is on, all the humid air goes into the room. So no point in running the humidifier with the door open. I don't mind that the humidity leaves the tent because it only takes 3-4 minutes to go from 53% to 80%.
I do know what you mean about controlling the outside-the-tent environment though and that's not possible for me right now. Heating or humidifying the room it's in would increase electrical costs considerably. Creating the door sensor was literally for my own shear laziness, I promise! Lol.
- Thread starter
- #212
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Your automation is BADASS!! I love your bracket!!
I just breadboarded an automation to monitor temperature, humidity, LUX and soil moisture. I send the data to the cloud where I can monitor it. I am testing a water valve and flow sensor to automatically water when I am away. This would be a great addition to a SIP setup (Maybe in the future for me). I am embarrassed to post these photos because I am in the early stages.
I send the data to io.adafruit.com. I built dashboards to monitor the data. You get 30 datapoints/min for free.
I would love to exchange ideas and tech on this!!
Hey Urban and welcome to my journal! I appreciate your kind words about the setup, thank you!
You should never be embarrassed by prototypes! That's all I want to see, really. Instead of reinventing the wheel every time, it's good to see what others are up to so everyone can build on it together and come out on top. That's what it's all about!
Your setup looks really good! I'm really liking all the nodes. Do you have a journal or anything where you've detailed what you have going on?
I'm all about exchanging ideas and thoughts and is the exact reason I spend the time chronicling what I'm doing on the tech side of things. So I do have some questions:
1. Battery voltage: What is handling that? Your MCU looks to be an ESP32, but all of the ESP32s I have don't have the JST connector there for the battery. But because it's plugged directly in, does that MCU have voltage logic onboard? I mean it has to, right? That's really cool and something I've been looking more into lately: battery powered nodes. The one thing I don't want to add is a whole separate voltage controller. So whatever MCU that is, and if it has onboard battery handling, is exactly what I've been looking for.
2. What is the red board below your temp/humidity sensor?
3. What is the board to the left on your breadboard? Has G, Y, G, B, R wiring plugged into it.
4. Tell me more about your soil sensor if you don't mind! Two years ago I looked all over for a way to monitor moisture gradient within a soil bed outdoors. Most of the soil moisture sensors that look like the one you have are only about 2" long, and only measures even less of the gradient. What model is yours, and how deep does it go?
That should be a good start. Have you thought of keeping all your data in-house? You could use a raspberry pi running home assistant to receive all of your sensor values and view them on a dashboard. Here's the most up-dated iteration of mine:
As you can see I need to refill my humidifier, which I'll do after this post. But that's the power of home assistant: not only are you monitoring your setup but it'll also automatically react to things based on the sensor values. You also have an unlimited amount of data points per minute as well. Something to look into!
I was just saying you will find a way. Not so many words. Just moving something to a certain spot can improve that.
UrbanGardner
Well-Known Member
First off. What you have with the buttons and sensors and graphs is awesome! If I can ever get my hands on a Pi zero I would love to add a camera. I swear I am buying as many as I can!! I am not interested in hosting all my data in house. I travel a lot and I want my data accessible from anywhere. I am not a big journaling kind of guy so I don't document my stuff.Hey Urban and welcome to my journal! I appreciate your kind words about the setup, thank you!
You should never be embarrassed by prototypes! That's all I want to see, really. Instead of reinventing the wheel every time, it's good to see what others are up to so everyone can build on it together and come out on top. That's what it's all about!
Your setup looks really good! I'm really liking all the nodes. Do you have a journal or anything where you've detailed what you have going on?
I'm all about exchanging ideas and thoughts and is the exact reason I spend the time chronicling what I'm doing on the tech side of things. So I do have some questions:
1. Battery voltage: What is handling that? Your MCU looks to be an ESP32, but all of the ESP32s I have don't have the JST connector there for the battery. But because it's plugged directly in, does that MCU have voltage logic onboard? I mean it has to, right? That's really cool and something I've been looking more into lately: battery powered nodes. The one thing I don't want to add is a whole separate voltage controller. So whatever MCU that is, and if it has onboard battery handling, is exactly what I've been looking for.
2. What is the red board below your temp/humidity sensor?
3. What is the board to the left on your breadboard? Has G, Y, G, B, R wiring plugged into it.
4. Tell me more about your soil sensor if you don't mind! Two years ago I looked all over for a way to monitor moisture gradient within a soil bed outdoors. Most of the soil moisture sensors that look like the one you have are only about 2" long, and only measures even less of the gradient. What model is yours, and how deep does it go?
That should be a good start. Have you thought of keeping all your data in-house? You could use a raspberry pi running home assistant to receive all of your sensor values and view them on a dashboard. Here's the most up-dated iteration of mine:
As you can see I need to refill my humidifier, which I'll do after this post. But that's the power of home assistant: not only are you monitoring your setup but it'll also automatically react to things based on the sensor values. You also have an unlimited amount of data points per minute as well. Something to look into!
What I am running is an Adafruit HUZZAH32. It is based on esp32. The adafruit board has a battery connector along with power management with charging capability. I am powered off a usb phone charger. The battery is a backup. It only has about a 4 hour life with all the wireless activity. There is a pin on the adafruit that has the battery voltage. It is a simple programing call to read it. There are lots of in/out pins to use as analog or digital IO. I have CircuitPython loaded on the board. Once the wireless is configured all management is done through a nifty web interface. My MCU collects the data and sends it via API call to the cloud. I have 2 sensors connected on a I2C bus. One is a light sensor and outputs in LUX the other is a temperature/humidity sensor. The small board on the left is the soil sensor it is a resistive type. I have a capacitive sensor but have not used it yet. I like the resistive sensor because there are no electronics on the board close to water. Plus I can make the cable as long as needed. The voltage when wet is lower around 1-2 volts. When fully dry it is about 3 volts. The red board is a MOSFET power module. I am going to use that to activate a solenoid on my water valve. It is activated by the button on my cloud dashboard. My ultimate goal is to be able to water my plants from anywhere. I have a flow meter that measures the amount of water dispensed. So I can program when a threshold is reached on the soil monitor or push a button. I would like to have a Pi zero as my main controller and connect all my IO via bluetooth. I have been working on this project for only a week since I received my parts. Granted I have had these ideas bouncing around my head for a long time. My biggest challenge is deploying it. Finding cases and such. That is why I am so impressed by your 3D printed bracket. That is badass to me. Let me know if you have any other questions. I am going to do some reading on Home Assistant. That looks like a potential game changer to me.
- Thread starter
- #215
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Definitely check it out. Home Assistant can be accessed remotely, they even have their own app! I believe some port forwarding is involved, I wouldn't know as mine is not opened to the world. So when I leave my network I can't access the HA app anymore. But, with port forwarding (I think?) and a setting you can make it so you have to log in with a user and pass to access via web browser or app anywhere in the world.
Thanks for this! I might have to pick a few up and give them a try. I like the idea of powering it with a bigger battery and using the small lipo as a backup, that's cool.
Yeah see I'm just not sure how well something like that would really work in a 5g bucket. I want to know what the moisture level is through the entire column of media, not just the first few inches. If I had a normal soil grow I could use it...and maybe I could set something up because the alaskan purple is actually going into a 1 gallon pot, so I could use it there. Nice. Thanks for the link!
All of that sounds super cool and would definitely be helpful in a SIP. Just need a reservoir. Definitely let me know what you come up with on the flow meter you're working on. I've thought about ways of monitoring water level in the res, and even thought of tracking weight at one point. A flow meter would definitely solve the input volume problem, just need a reliable way to know for sure the res is empty.
- Thread starter
- #216
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Hi everyone! I'm getting some great growth from all 3 plants and it was time to train the AP. Finally.
As for the blueberries, we're on day 24 from popping out of the soil in a solo sip cup. Today marks 5 days since they were uppotted into their 5 gallon sip containers, and there's definitely some noticeable growth. They're both praying towards the light which is what we all want to see. I only wish they were a bit darker in the new growth, so I'm looking forward to them draining their reservoirs and feeding from the bottom properly. They're both still half full.
The AP also looks great today at day 56. Nice and green new growth, and every day I'm seeing her get bushier and bushier. This prompted me to begin her training regimen as I want her to stay as flat as possible before flip. She was last watered 2 days ago, and right now her cycle time is about 4 days. I'm thinking tomorrow or the next she'll receive feed.
And lastly a group shot to show the size differences. Things are moving right along now and nothing seems to be stalled, which is great. Let's hope it lasts all the way through!
Thanks for stopping by!
As for the blueberries, we're on day 24 from popping out of the soil in a solo sip cup. Today marks 5 days since they were uppotted into their 5 gallon sip containers, and there's definitely some noticeable growth. They're both praying towards the light which is what we all want to see. I only wish they were a bit darker in the new growth, so I'm looking forward to them draining their reservoirs and feeding from the bottom properly. They're both still half full.
The AP also looks great today at day 56. Nice and green new growth, and every day I'm seeing her get bushier and bushier. This prompted me to begin her training regimen as I want her to stay as flat as possible before flip. She was last watered 2 days ago, and right now her cycle time is about 4 days. I'm thinking tomorrow or the next she'll receive feed.
And lastly a group shot to show the size differences. Things are moving right along now and nothing seems to be stalled, which is great. Let's hope it lasts all the way through!
Thanks for stopping by!
UrbanGardner
Well-Known Member
I installed the docker version on my chromebook. I am trying to figure out how I can get my sensors detected.
Agreed with the soil monitor. I figure I will plot the data for a few weeks and see if there is any value. It is like a 2 buck investment.
A water sensor like this would be perfect for a SIP setup. 12" eTape Liquid Level Sensor + extras
- Thread starter
- #218
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Feel free to PM me if you need any help! I used the docker version in my Unraid server for quite a while when I first started. I found (at the time, around a year ago) the container wasn't being maintained and had a bunch of supervisor issues at one point. That's when I switched everything to a virtual machine within Unraid and it's been running like clock work ever since.
That eTape definitely wasn't around when I was looking at soil moisture monitoring a few years ago, that's a game changer with SIP for sure! Thanks for the link! I'm definitely going to order some and give it a shot. They can go in the next cycle and we can see how they work.
UrbanGardner
Well-Known Member
Just a quick update. I got my esp32 connected to Home Assistant. It required a little work. I had to install ESPHome. I guess you can't install addons in the Docker version. I re-flashed my device with the wifi info. The config is all YAML. So far so good. Thanks for turning me on to HA!!!!
- Thread starter
- #220
AspenCultivator
Well-Known Member
Sweet! Yeap, ESPHome is really streamlined when adding devices. That's what I used for the ultrasonic sensor. It's the same for the VM version...had to upload the firmware via web. However once you do that first config upload, you can do OTA updates from now on. Makes it super handy so you don't have to go grab the board and plug it into your computer every time you want to change something.
When you start looking into Lovelace, go ahead and install HACS. From HACS take a look at the Mini Graph Card. That's what I use for my temp, humidity, and vpd displays. HACS has all kinds of custom dashboard cards you can use, some of them are extremely cool.