As a belated Devember, I thought I’d get working on the code for a hydroponics controller system.
The system is split into two parts:
Sensor and actuator board
This is an Arduino based board used to control sensor inputs, transmit three days back to a controller and control actuators around the growing bed.
Central controller
Most likely a pi based computer system to read, collate, store and react based on data from the sensor boards.
@Just_Lurking My project started from a desire to design a system that would optimise the growing rate/space ratio. So maybe there will be something there you might find interesting.
@NetBandit I hadn’t actually seen their products before. They seem to try and control similar features to me. However where they seem to daisy chain individual modules, each sensing/controlling a single thing. My design divides each growing bed, with its own controller. All being managed by a central unit.
@wendell yeah, I found them. But I can’t say I like the IOT ‘feel’ of it. I hope to bring my industrial automation experience into making a more industrial solution which is far easier to expand. I just wish I knew which PH sensors they used. I couldn’t find any that gave a readable output (no LCD display) which I could hoop into my system that weren’t crazily expensive.
Although, I’d be quite interested to hear what you would look for in caring for a bonsai tree, it would be interesting to see if there is much difference to other growing situations.
I will update the README with a bit more detail on how the system is intended to work.
I’ve never actually used the Allen Bradley stuff. I’ve mostly stuck to the Seimens or FESTO PLCs personally.
I might have a look into them, but for this project I’m designing custom boards.
But thanks for the suggestion, will probably get one to play with.
Day 3
I’ve added a more detailed description to the project README.
Added the light sensor code, but I still need to link that to the RGB output, maybe using a PID loop, so the lights automatically tune themselves to the colour set by the user.
Added a bit more of the framework to the code.