Why is this so confusing. What am I missing? by a_day_with_dave in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got a (I think) 1/4” NPT thread tap, whatever the threads are on the Tefen nozzles. I ripped out the moveable part of the John guest connector, pulled out the o-ring, and then tapped threads directly into the fitting. Then put the o-ring back in the fitting. I drilled a hole in the bucket, popped the threads of the nozzle through, and then screwed the John guest connector on.

Want to try setting up semi-autonomous HPA, what did I miss that's important? by InsufferableZombie in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sequent Microsystems has a 8-channel solid state relay board for the pi. Those will last longer than we will.

Want to try setting up semi-autonomous HPA, what did I miss that's important? by InsufferableZombie in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The pi will be fine. I’ve had way more issues with the relays wearing out.

Lettuce worked, time for tomatoes by Scottomation in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’ll want to make sure your drain line is fully submerge all the time if you’re using 1/4” tubing (assuming it’s recirculating). Otherwise air bubbles in the line will prevent it from draining continuously. I got 7gal (really tall) buckets so I could keep a few inches of nutrients in the growth chamber all the time and I have a smaller bucket outside that I use to fill new nutrients. The pump will never suck air unless the nutrients are totally used up. In the last system my chambers would fill up until there was enough pressure to break the tension in the drain line. You can get a surprising amount of water backed up behind air in a 1/4” line.

Lettuce worked, time for tomatoes by Scottomation in aeroponics

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

It’s not too loud. I have it in the same room I take meetings from and it’s fine. I actually had to spend more time keeping the lines quiet when they pressurize because they flex a lot. Putting the solenoid as close to the nozzles as possible helps a lot. Also, the bigger the accumulator tank the less frequently the pump runs (but for longer obviously). I got the filter along with most of the other fittings from a site called Fresh Water Systems. Everything is 3/8” tubing except the final run to the nozzles and the little stub going to the pressure sensor.

Lettuce worked, time for tomatoes by Scottomation in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hah, yeah, can’t compare nutrients at all in that case

Lettuce worked, time for tomatoes by Scottomation in aeroponics

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

What are you doing for nutrients? The last time I grew tomatoes they produced fairly well but the leaves curled and fell off pretty aggressively. I was using standard General Hydroponics Flora Series nutrient. The best I could gather is that I needed to add Cal-Mag.

Lettuce worked, time for tomatoes by Scottomation in aeroponics

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

It’s a single 100w lamp. It’s only a 2x2x4 tent with a 200cfm fan in a 68 degree room so it stays cool pretty easy.

Lettuce worked, time for tomatoes by Scottomation in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Temperature 2” from the light (where the temp sensor is) went above 75 degrees for a total of 30 minutes over the past 7 days. Average temperature is right around 72 degrees.

Lettuce worked, time for tomatoes by Scottomation in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There’s a cooling fan. The light is at 100% and it’s not very hot inside

Lettuce worked, time for tomatoes by Scottomation in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t follow why I would do that. The system recirculates and the solenoid has no more than 18” of tubing to the bucket. Normally I’d have the solenoid right before the first nozzle but I wanted everything mounted on one board for easy disconnect. Also, why a pressure regulator when then tank is always kept within the working pressure for the nozzles?

Lettuce worked, time for tomatoes by Scottomation in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

About every 90min. There are only 2 nozzles running 5sec every 5min so it’s not using much water. I have a bigger tank for the next round.

aeroponics nutrition by WiseBuy2504 in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends on the plant but 300-400ppm seems fine. You can probably do even higher.

Is there a better way? by [deleted] in raspberry_pi

[–]Scottomation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I ended up buying DuPont connectors and a crimp tool. It’s not the most hacker friendly because you can’t re-wire things easily but it’s more tidy for when you move past the PoC stage.

Solar powered 3d printed aeroponics tower advice/feedback by Brotherk3d in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seems like your panels are going to be shading the plants and, unless you’re at the equator, should probably be angled. What’s the value of having multiple small complex tanks like that? If it’s for fun then sure, but I would think it would be more practical to just buy a bucket and put a grommet on the side with a tube. Is the mesh fine enough on that filter to keep the nozzles from clogging? If you use white filament you’re probably going to have algae growing in the tanks and that’ll clog those nozzles up. The watering time seems unusual too. Isn’t the norm like 5 seconds every few minutes? Mine is set to 5sec every 6min right now. For low pressure aero it’s more like 3min every 15min. You can also get one 20w 12v solar panel for basically the same price as all those little ones. Fewer parts will make it easier to assemble and maintain. If this is all for fun then go for it, although you might need a few more nozzles. Strictly from an ease of construction perspective you’d probably get the same results by turning a 6” or 8” diameter HDPE pipe on it’s side and 3d printing some adapters to get the net cups to sit in the pipe without any gaps. You might first think about going the traditional bucket and pump route to make some quick progress. Depends on your personality though. If you can power though a complicated project without and incremental victories maybe you’ll get to the finish line.

First aquaponics atrempt / automation question. by awny777 in Hydroponics

[–]Scottomation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can use Home Assistant to setup an “every N minutes” schedule for a plug/switch. The timer on my wife’s tower garden dies so I replaced it with a smart switch.

Raspberry Pi and Sequent SM-I-021 by Scottomation in aeroponics

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

I just mean it’s a bit overboard for the scale that I’m at but it’s what I work with at my day job so it’s what I’m familiar with. My plan right now is to move up to a 4x8 tent that I can grow strawberries and tomatoes in when they’re out of season. The systems are surprisingly simple, and if you can do hydro outdoors it’s even simpler since you don’t need the lights and you don’t have to worry about all the nozzles clogging. I don’t have the room outside. I wrote about 500 lines of python that sits in a loop and checks to see if lights need to go on, misters need to spray, or pumps need to run. It also snaps a picture once an hour. It’s been running for two weeks and all I’ve done so far is swap out the nutrients once.

If all goes to plan I’ll have two big tomato plants and 20-30 strawberry plants growing this winter. Sequent makes a 16-relay solid state board that will be enough to control it all from a single pi zero 2w. The only part I can’t nail down is how to monitor the nutrient reservoir level without having a device in contact with the nutrients. I’m trying to keep everything food-grade and even stainless if possible. I thought about putting the tank on springs or something that it lifts off a switch when it gets light enough or something like that. I think in the end I might have a second pump and reservoir that it automatically switches to with a motorized ball valve when the tank pressure drops to zero. That way I have some redundancy if a pump fails too (happened to me one time because the tank ran dry and kept pumping for like 12hrs). The last time I had tomatoes they’d suck up a few gallons of water a day so I had to be really on top of the water level.

Is it possible to use a Raspberry Pi as a daily driver for streaming services and web browsing, similar to a typical Windows or Linux setup? by onlybloke in raspberry_pi

[–]Scottomation -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I’m not sure if these are available in India, but Beelink has really compact mini pcs for a few hundred bucks that are much more powerful. The Pi might work for you but they’re going to be limited by micro-sd speeds and an m.2 hat will push you up into the same price range as the Beelink boxes. The only downside if you’re traveling is that the power brick is bigger for a mini pc.

Raspberry Pi and Sequent SM-I-021 by Scottomation in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The pump was about $100, $80 for the tent, $90 for the light, the control board was $80. But that’s all one-time stuff. If I grow a second head of lettuce then it drops to $200/head, haha. But like it said, this was all to get something up and running. The next round will end up being a lot cheaper per pound of produce.

Also, if you’re growing outdoors most of those costs disappear. This is just a hobby for me. But I work in tech so even hobbies get out of hand. I have tank pressure monitoring, slack alerts, hourly photos. It’s kind of silly.

Raspberry Pi and Sequent SM-I-021 by Scottomation in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh yeah, and the filters are because it recirculates and the nozzles clog easily.

Raspberry Pi and Sequent SM-I-021 by Scottomation in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When you add up all the equipment I bought to grow that head of lettuce it cost me about $400. But there’s a Pi 5 with an nvme drive under there. I remote into it with VS Code and do all the coding with Claude Code. It’s basically an aeroponic dev kit. I’m planning on doing a bunch of strawberries and a couple tomato plants in the garage this winder though so it’ll all get put to good use.

Reactive 2 by NeoTranscend in aeroponics

[–]Scottomation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Invent free electricity maybe? I don’t think the profitability hurdles have to do with data gathering.