Hey, all! First topic here but long time lurker and finally new poster/user.
So first off, big nerd here and big stoner so naturally it was a matter of time before I tried to marry the two a bit with raspberry pi technology which from the search I checked out seems like is being very well utilized by the extraction side of our community here but what about the cultivation end of things? I could not find much regarding this at all even though it is very (seemingly) basic.
I’ve been in the process of a strong rebuild and naturally wanting to upgrade everything I can get my grubby little mitts on so basic environmental controls come to mind first and foremost such as a master greenhouse controller which are INSANELY pricy considering it’s a few different sensors connected to a small relay - now that being said has anyone made an indoor monitoring setup for an RPI that includes co2/temp/RH? I’ve set up a small automatic watering system/soil moisture content sensor just to sort of get my feet wet with the GPIO breakout and I think that this can be made for a fraction of what one would pay for the Greenhouse Masters and the like - without the automatic watering portion that is. Naturally I have a few questions though for the more MacGuyver-y members who’ve played around with RPI boards more extensively than I.
How reliable are avail. temperature sensors/RH/co2 sensors for those who have used them? There’s TONS through adafruit but i’ve had a double edged sword with them when it came to building my previous project (original soil moisture unit was T/F instead of giving an actual number) so I know they work well but are unfortunately very basic in terms of information it gives out.
The ultimate idea is to create something in the vein of the aforementioned Greenhouse Master but on a budget and somewhat omitting the heating controls thusly only needing 3 120v relay outlets and a few inexpensive sensors offered by various RPI part manufacturers which can probably be ran on years-old RPI boards. Reasonable or pipe dream? I have a background in IT and electronics so the construction isn’t so much the hard part as seeing if these hobby-level parts will be able to stand up to daily abuse. I know there are projects already made that tracks Temperatures, RH, and other sort of weather-related things but what I have in mind is sort of all of those mixed together with a cheap GUI frontend to visualize the data and adjust tolerances on the fly with a local computer or smartphone to have a handle on the info being sent back from sensors - maybe with some data logging/spreadsheeting that can be set up with future revisions?
Thank you guys and hope y’all are having a great weekend! Thanks for reading my ramble!
I’ve got some stuff ordered for a future data logging project, automation would be the next step after that. I’ve got an ESP32 on the way and some pro micros, plus a rpi 3 that’s just sitting around
As far as sensors go, I’ve ordered these to play with:
All of this sounds good man . I’ve worked with a guy before who hooked up green houses with this kind of tech. He also uses it out in the field for rain detection and stuff. I think it worked in tandem with the drip system. The ol boy is based out of nashville. Sending his name and number to yah via DM. He’s an old hemp partner of ours. Really cool dude should probably run for prez with all the shit he’s done in his life.
Man, i’m so glad I finally bit my lip and signed up on here! I’m a bit of a hermit and keep to my friends who are totally NOT the technical type!
But the idea kind of came after I was seeing how advanced they can make small weather stations with RPI boards so I thought why the hell not a greenhouse master unit if it can even cheaply calculate barometric pressure?? Ultimately I want this not-quite-a-pipe-dream to benefit beginner growers and experienced ones who just don’t have the capital to spend on the gear AND the stuff to plug it into.
I actually have the adafruit and sparkfun sensors and I think it MAY be a hardware/software issue? The costs are super low on their production of those so it can’t handle the constant electrical charge it sends from one lead to the other to measure the humidity based soil resistance because of the paper thin layer on there, I read in a few different instances the people using those were turning down the rate of checking to make the probes last longer. I think one guy had it testing it every 10 seconds and change it to every 10 minutes to really put some time back into it. Once i got my little minipump working with it I kind of lost interest since it wasn’t returning numerical data and the sensitivity adjustment thing on there didn’t seem to work - I know the temp sensors they sell for the RPI though are dead on and relatively cheap too. Looking at the stock of co2/gas detection hardware that’s compatible with the boards it seems like there’s a lot of ‘contact the company for quote’ stuff which makes me think the co2 sensor is where the greenhouse master controllers really get their uptick in price. BUT THERE’S ALWAYS HONG KONG! God bless Alibaba for shit like that…if it’s got a user manual in english at least.
But as far as the build of this project, it seems like there’s the building blocks all over the internet for this - I found this guy last night after some late night digging which essentially would be the nuts and bolts of it, controlling the relays and the very very basic sensorless build
At this point a few things would need to be figured out
How to add 3 sensors to the GPIO breakout board without overlapping all 3 and making them not return gibberish cuz they’re trying to talk over eachother. Having to run 3 RPI boards would sort of invalidate the low cost point
How to slap some code together to check variables in a simple T/F fashion which this essentially only is, a raspberry PI asking these sensors every few seconds if it’s there yet and killing/opening the connection when the variable is met. There’s a lot out there already doing things similar to this. Maybe I can see if I can use some as…inspiration. I’ve got a little experience with python so I think if basic and functional is the goal I can achieve it in time.
(later on) add a simple web server to run in the background to see/set variables in real time without having to SSH into the stupid board or lug a HDMI viewable screen/wireless keyboard with you
Dude it feels good to be in a place where I can find people who appreciate both of them as well - normally I have to sacrifice one or the other and never mention bud around the tech people or tech around the bud people (queue Ogre yelling NERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDS! here). I recently rewired a BADASS power team quarter horse hydraulic pump to a fuckin` RV battery! I haven’t tried to get a voltage inverter to work the heating elements though because it’ll make me cry when it only lasts 5 minutes
And ky, got your message! Dude you gotta love how flexible these boards are. Some people see this as unnecessary research and dev. but I see it as getting acquainted with a very custom piece of hardware that’s akin to a swiss army knife cept` no toothpick
But for real if anyone has anything at all to add, correct, ANYTHING i’d love to hear it and collaborate!
If you use an Arduino you can stack sensors/devices on the i2c, I’m working that out on my terp temper right now. Someone suggested adding pull-up resistors and a cap for power smoothing
Make sure u buy good sensor components, most of the shitty ones work off analog voltage readings. Never got those to work accurately (the <$20 a piece sensors). Ive had better luck with the sesnsors that are like $50-100 and talk through the i2c
I’m into this on the aeroponics side of things, real time ph/ec/temp. I would love to work out the dosing side via the matriarch for the “motherbrain”.
I’ve played with teensy controllers for programming lighting consoles & leds, pretty cool for sure. Bet it’s come along way since my last look in 2015…
Great video & well thought out for your needs. The peristaltic pumps are what I need to incorporate with a few other features. The weight feature with the Rez is a nice touch. I spoke with someone who was using that for the nute dosing feature but they moved away from it saying the peristaltic pumps were more reliable. Software for light control & dosing requirement during different stages of flower would be a good option. A colab of some sort would be neat if your into it. Thanks for sharing.
Sensibo to control and monitor your AC / Humidity.
Orbit B Hyve to control the watering system with a relay to your pump.
You can measure soil moisture many ways but in a controlled environment watering plants with a setup like this is super easy to dial in…if your a grower already you should pretty much have this down and be able to program your waterings.
. I’ve worked with a guy before who hooked up green houses with this kind of tech. He also uses it out in the field for rain detection and stuff. I think it worked in tandem with the drip system. The ol boy is based out of nashville. Sending his name and number to yah via DM. He’s an old hemp partner of ours. Really cool dude should probably run for prez with all the shit he’s done in his life.