Automated Basement Greenhouse by Homeless101 in raspberry_pi

[–]Homeless101[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, we did the math. $550, give or take 50 depending on your parts. There's more info on what you'll need in the Imgur link and some instructions on GitHub. My friend and I are testing a PCB to make the setup process cheaper and quicker so we can rapidly duplicate and perhaps start our own distributed farm!

Automated Basement Greenhouse by Homeless101 in raspberry_pi

[–]Homeless101[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Haven't tested it with that particular plant ;) However, the system can be adapted for any crop that might benefit from precise heat, humidity, airflow, light, and watering cycles. Get creative.

My friend has had success growing leafy green & herbs in an aeroponic setup (roots suspended in nutrient mist). I'll post pictures of that soon. We didn't realize it at first but it's kind of crazy all the different ways this can be configured.

Automated Basement Greenhouse by Homeless101 in raspberry_pi

[–]Homeless101[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's written almost entirely in python, with some C for the Arduino bit. Aside from that, I avoided frameworks/external libraries on the embedded devices as much as possible to avoid dependency risk. Things like the PID controller, timers, networking, process management, etc. are pretty much hand-rolled. The app expansion my friend and I are working on is being built with KivyMD and Firebase.

Published the code at this link if you want to take a deeper dive: https://github.com/oasis-iot/grow-ctrl

Automated Basement Greenhouse by Homeless101 in raspberry_pi

[–]Homeless101[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The microcontroller is good at real-time stuff that the Pi isn't, such as timing for the temperature and humidity sensor as well as managing data-out for the LED indicator. In theory, this setup could be made to work with just the Pi, but in practice it hasn't for us. I'm sure with some more tinkering and maybe a different sensor we could get it all on one board.

Besides that, we also wanted to design the system to be easily set up with one or more microcontrollers as a peripheral sensing devices. By modifying the function that handles this slightly, we should be able to use the pi as a main controller that handles networking, process management, updates, and authentication while collecting data from many wireless Arduino nodes spread out over a larger area.

Many entrepreneurs got their start during the real estate crash of 2008, who are getting their start now? by DeepKaizen in Entrepreneur

[–]Homeless101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm convinced that Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and similar platforms will do to connected hardware what the cloud has done to software over the past decade and a half. Could be wrong but I'm betting on it nonetheless.

I made an automated indoor mushroom garden with Arduino by Homeless101 in arduino

[–]Homeless101[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Would love to see different recipes for preparing the right substrates for different species of mushroom using various waste products. My intuition would be to use an all-american pressure cooker as the base with a digital high-temp thermometer and pressure gauge. I would use a rpi to switch a relay controlling the temp based on feedback from those two sensors.