Refriedbeano's Outdoor Mayhem

[refriedbeano]

Website for the BudCure Box and cannaster is up!

BudCure

I'm starting to close into the core functionalilty of the machines. For the BudCure Box, I have to find a work around the fact that cheap load cells from china will have significant drift in the measurements, so I'm either gonna have to get clever or shell out 60$ for a good load cell.
And the Cannaster needs a better humidity sensor, as the one on the bme280 isn't even close at the 60-90% range, and doesn't have good repeatability. I found someone on amazon selling a bme280 with a precision humidity sensor on it too! that was a surprise! I've also come across the problem that the outside humidity will interfere with the humidity readings in the vacuum chamber, so i can't tell by how much the humidity is increasing from the buds. I plan on making an inline air dryer with silica beads in the next few weeks, where i can pull a vacuum and then release it through the air dryer, and be able to see by how much the buds are increasing the humidity.

 

[Trala]

Hi

I’m gonna watch you from the bleachers if that’s okay?

And omg I called them “refined beans” for most of my adult life and I’m not even joking!

 

[refriedbeano]

The plants are getting way bigger, and I haven't even used any nutrients yet.

One issue that came up is security. I'm right in with the rich people and the across the river is a kind of tourist attraction. We get allot of air traffic.... when i heard a helicopter buzzing around looking at stuff I realized what a problem this is. And I chopped down a tree I could've left hanging over my spot.


And so, I have accomplished the task of porting over the budcure to the esp processor. I feel like its now its much more user friendly thanks to the more modern resources available. A big one was having interrupts on every pin, so that when you turn the knob or press the button it can detect it without loosing any user inputs. It also made the menu system much easier to implement.

So what I really want is a precision machine where none of the components cost more than 10$. I learned the load cells that measure weight are going to have drift in the measurement over time... so I devised a scheme to overcome that where you have to remove the tray and tare the scale back to zero. I think that it should work and be able to give me milligram resolution so I can just sit back and watch the evaporation proceed.

The weight there is only the weight of the buds. Every time you want to see how much weight is lost, you go to "new weight" selection and tare out the weight, which is also saved into an array of weights that have been taken. I'm going to make a youtube video about its operation here once I verify that my setup is going to work. Theres's no reason it wouldn't, but i have been surprised before.


And, I luckily found these flowers outside a flower shop yesterday

Because I've been wanting to test out the event where I have to use the TEC or fan to keep the humidity down. So I'm going to fill up the budcure box with these boys next week.


And finally, a rant on trying to update the cannaster to use the esp processor.

It was a waste of two days of effort. Well, I actually did all the work in one day, which consisted of putting together a pcb on my computer, then machining it on my 3018 cnc, then populating it with my soldering iron.

The aggravating part is testing it out and correcting all the mistakes you invariably made. But then I never breadboard tested if the esp, which runs at 3.4v, could drive the motor controller which works at 5v, without an extra IC chip. Well, I learned it kinda can but it is far too weak to lift the lid. And then while doing the software I realized I hated this design and I'd much rather use the arduino boards for motor related tasks. So now I have the dreaded PTSD demon attacking me (from a boat motor design I spent weeks on that ended up not being feasible).


So now that I have the budcure box giving me precise readings about the moisture content of the buds, I wanted to see if I can surmount the last real problem with the cannaster and that is the outside humidity levels being higher than 65% (the target humidity), I'm trying to solve it with an inline air dryer held on to the side of the cannaster

First test all i did was hook it up and pump down the chamber as low as I could (5psi) then I opened up the inline dryer. I'm using silica gel as the desiccant. Nothing really happened to the humidity inside the chamber. But I have an idea that I could use a servo motor to slowly pull air through the tube that I will be testing out this weekend. This is all just to get an accurate moisture reading and make this a precision machine... but its not a deal breaker as this is super useful for drying out bud by feel too.

 

[refriedbeano]

SO... I feel like I have accomplished my goals for right now and I'm just enjoying putting in the small details. I'm testing out the BudCure Box with a larger load of roses to dry. The humidity level rised up to the 80's yesterday when I hung them up, and the weight was at 170 grams. Today I coded something for the fan to turn on if the humidity level gets above 77%, and turn off when it drops down to 75%. Its working quite well. I've also updated the home screen to show which program is running in the lower left side. What I'm having to do to get accurate weight readings is to only read the weight into memory at night (due to thermal drift of the load cell). My goal is to extend the drying time by atleast a week, preferably two weeks.
And you know what, I think this is a better method of drying buds than most other methods, because for one the buds are hanging upside down and two, you can customize the weight of your buds for sale. I'm not sure if I will be selling machines or marijuana in the future, since you can't buy a good drying machine nor buy cured buds! Maybe both!

 

[Trala]

Wow what a creative person you are!

Great job!

 

[refriedbeano]

Allright its been a while but I'm still at it! I started realizing I wasn't gonna make it very long if i didn't do something about the smell, as the trail is just 30 feet away. I made a containment thing with tarp and green netting, I can also protect it from rain by just folding over the tarp. I'm pretty lucky it works cause you can only get a whiff of something dank here and there, but its also pretty hot and once it cools down you shouldn't be able to smell anything. Also, as a bonus it seems like the plants are using less water since the humidity is higher now.

I picked up a few more projects, one is I'm going to be building an induction heater for dabbing. What is better about it is that I'll be using 18650's as the power source so it is portable. Also, I'm going to be making a bottle jack rosin press before I begin harvesting.
I gotta get the cannaster ready to go again. Somehow the lid isn't sealing right anymore, maybe the heat has warped it... and the electronics are acting up. So I'm about to make some more pourable silicon gaskets and putting in a new pcb next week.
Oh and I had a run in with the authority guy again yesterday. He asked if I am still living up on the ridge ( he has a thing for tearing apart my tents ). I was on my way out and he pulls out his phone and starts recording me, asking if i was going to assault him. I'm not quite sure why he pulled such a bitch move as to hide behind his phone.
Anyways, he assured me he will be back with his friends to take all of my stuff out. I don't really believe it'll ever happen though. But this guy has a knack for showing up at the perfect time, and I'm always nervous when I'm coming out of my grow spot!

 

[refriedbeano]

I have finally deployed the budcure box into the field, and off of my desk!

While I consider this machine to be a prototype of something better, its about 100% functional with the cheap parts that I built it with. Next year I'm thinking about using thin insulation in the box so i can both heat and cool the interior with the thermoelectic device.
So, the game plan is to harvest two plants every week or two. Since I have 10 plants it should take until mid November at the latest.

Anyway, I just harvested 5 plants that were in the 3 gallon pots. Total weight was 130 grams. I am recording the variables into a csv file to have a look at whats going on. Currently the way I have the machine setup is that you can set the lower bounds for humidity and the TEC will turn off once its reached. I also have the fan whose job it is to recycle the air in the box. I'm setting that as cycles per hour, i.e. you can turn it on x amount of times per hour. And then you can set the amount of time the fan is actually on.
And now I have to get into the python scripts I wrote a few years ago to visualize the data!

 

[Trala]

Good morning ​

Great growing and do you know what? I think if you got this pic with a better focus and a tiny bit of editing you could have a pic of the month contender!

 

[RhastaBlasta]

It's like...on or near your property or it's just a hidden camp in the middle of nowhere filled with ganja?

 

[refriedbeano]

Thanks Trala! That tray was a lucky find at the goodwill.

It's like...on or near your property or it's just a hidden camp in the middle of nowhere filled with ganja?

Its actually just inside a major city, but no one hardly ever goes back here if you can believe it. The entrance is up a steep hill and no sidewalk. Its owned by the city though and they know I'm back there after 5 years.

 

[refriedbeano]

Got AI to generate python code to visualize this. As you can see, the weight started off at 130 grams and dropped pretty steadily over the course of 3 days. The status of the marijuana is that it went bone dry and i stuffed it all into this 3D printed jar...

I'm making a rosin press so I'll be able to smoke all this. The ending weight is about 34 grams, initial weight was 134 grams, so it would make water content of the buds to be about 75%. But there was still a little bit of moisture trapped inside the buds.
I only messed this up because the other machine, the cannaster, was having problems (I'm overhauling the electronics now). I would've taken the buds out this morning while they were holding the humidity at 70% and had a weight of 55 grams, and used the cannaster to bring down the humidity levels over the course of the next few days. Obviously this isn't ideal, but imagine this machine in a climate controlled room with infinite electricity from the wall. You could probably get it to cover over 6 days in the budcure box, and another 6 days in the cannaster.
I'm going to wait till the temperature drops a bit, hopefully next week, before starting another harvest. The box reached over 100 degrees, so that is no good!

 

[refriedbeano]

What a weird day. I woke up and started working on the last part of the Cannaster, and after a few hours I finally got the machine into its final form before trying it out. The way it worked out is that i can only change one variable using the controls (others can be changed in code as needed). So the program has the vacuum pump turning on once an hour unless the humidity gets above a certain threshold, then it will turn on automatically. you can change the "max humdity" variable on the screen. I cap the humidity at 80% and then the pump pulls a vacuum down to 7psi for 3 minutes when either its been an hour or the humidity gets to 80%. So what is happening once i stick my buds in the machine is that the 3 minute vacuum take the humidity down about 20%, and then the buds bring the humidity level up to 80% in about 13 minutes. I've sat around for a while with it and its pretty consistent 13 minutes. I'm thinking by tomorrow it will be pulling once an hour. Then i will decrease the humidity cap to 73% or so for the rest of the day.
So when i was going to my spot and deciding if i should take the bud out of the budcurebox and into the cannaster I hear a very light rapping sound from close by. I waited for about a minute until i confirmed that someone was in my campsite and I was trapped in my grow site. I waited for about 2 hours waiting for them to go away!

So i guess the authority guy is gonna bring in the big equipment to take out all of my aircrete. Hopefully they do not find my nearby growsite! But it was so weird because the plants just stopped smelling a few days ago. Like before the smell would carpet the ground in the vicinity, but now I have to squeeze the buds to smell it. The only thing it could've been is that I ran out of fertilizer a few weeks ago.
Right now I am happy that these machines are so useful to bring in the harvest. The budcurebox seems pretty accurate in keeping up with the moisture evaporation gram by gram. I pulled the buds out this afternoon after it had reached a final weight of 55 grams (out of 120). Last time I had 130 grams dry completely down to 35 grams. They were still wet but the cannaster will handle it overnight tonight.