What I'm Workin' On: My Latest Home Assistant Project, an Upcoming Grow, & Some New Lights to Test

Рет қаралды 4,547

3 жыл бұрын

I've set a goal to upload more frequently in between my Home Assistant Series and light review videos, and I think more casual updates like this one is the way to go.
In this one:
- Controlling my PPFD measuring machine through Home Assistant because... why not?
- Getting ready for a fun little comparison grow to see how Quantum Boards + photo red Buddies from LEDTEKNIK do vs. just straight Quantum Boards
- Preparing the PPFD test space to test some new lights from Atreum

Пікірлер: 47

@digitald5851 3 жыл бұрын

I really appreciate what you do. If it would help you, could you add affiliate links for a pi 4, 10" touchscreen, and several other amazon items? I could send you my cart and whatever you would link, I would order. Thanks for keeping me up all night lol

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

Hey there, thank you very much! I have links to everything in the video description of my video that describes my system here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h5-Wna6WvrXdoYk.html You can just follow any one of those links and then whatever you purchase on Amazon within 24 hours (I think that's the time frame) will count towards my referral and I get a cool 3% of it, regardless of what you buy, at no extra cost to you. If you've already got your list, here's a link to the Pi 4 amzn.to/3pdrBPe that will do the same thing. Thanks again - this really helps me buy new parts to produce videos on.

@digitald5851 3 жыл бұрын

@@LEDGardener Perfect. Btw, I havent found anything to PWM a refrigerant compressor. Just one company with a vague website asking me to call for price. Seems like everything tops out around 35-40v. I'm really green so I'm abandoning that part of the project and using a fixed speed compressor.

@E_-_- 3 жыл бұрын

You helped me to understand LEDs, and that helped me to learn more about electricity and many other things. Thanks man

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

Hey, that's great to hear. DIY is so much fun for this stuff.

@cmcferin 3 жыл бұрын

Great content and thanks for the video. It is always great to see your posts so please keep it up!

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

Hey, thanks. Working on upping the frequency.

@Alexander_Meyer 3 жыл бұрын

Super cool!

@Swag22ify 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for sharing

@StevenGodlewski 3 жыл бұрын

Great Idea. Wish I had this setup have a new grow light from Cali Light Wrks I want to test.

@MattGarver 3 жыл бұрын

Aren't you the guy who works on the Mars Rover project? Sometimes I get lost in the tech versus the grow, and can appreciate the level of detail in your setup. Smart reasoning to go black on the floor of the light test tent, as it does seem more applicable to tents full of plants. Looks like LEAN methodology too, with a dedicated touch screen and eliminating laptop hookups. More simple and streamlined, regarding ease of use, and looking forward to seeing your grow experiments up and running. With maturity time on peppers, you should have a months worth of future updates. Nice job!

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

Hahaha. Rovers are a little out of my wheelhouse :D I agree about the tech thing. I love the tech side of things and that means sometimes I end up getting tunnel vision and going 6 months without even growing anything. Feels good to have something in the garden again.

@poseyperspective3591 3 жыл бұрын

Keep up the good work! Loving this channel!!

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

Cheers :D

@user-bl8cu5pn4x 3 жыл бұрын

Awesome, you are automating even the light measuring, then you will add a pump on each reservoirs to automate the reservoir change so you just have to put the seedlings and then trim the leaves and harvest your cannapepper😅, let's automate the trim too with a robotic arm. 🤣🤣Good work mate keep up with the series 😉

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

Bahahaha cannapeppers. Nothing like a little capsaicin with each toke. Hell yeah though, automate it all away!

@user-bl8cu5pn4x 3 жыл бұрын

I was wondering if you can do two drawings with the cabling, one for your control box and one for all the sensors and solenoids and pump etc.. With that I could progress a little without waiting for the videos..

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

@@user-bl8cu5pn4x this has been on my to-do list foreeeever and I've been procrastinating because it'll be an undertaking for sure. It's something I should have done from the get-go... But I will bump up the priority and do my best to complete this - in the meantime, I'm happy to try to answer any specific questions you might have about the wiring.

@sailingsurvival 3 жыл бұрын

You could attach the LED light to that gizmo instead.. then get the light moving all around inside :).. Or have mirrors that move?

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

That'd be something. The big lights are like 2'x2' and 30 lbs!

@jsargen1 3 жыл бұрын

Hi! Nice, informative channel! :) With your automated PAR intensity testing setup, I wonder if you can/have answer/ed a question? Say you have a 2x4 tent, and have 2 lights. Do you position the center of the lights at the center 1/3 points of the 4ft line? Or is the middle of the lights (tent center) PAR value a lot higher with that spot being lit by 2 lights , compared to the edge of the tent lit by 1 light and it's reflection off the tent wall. I've watched a lot of videos, and haven't seen someone address this question definitively :) Your automated grow control system is f'n AWESOME. I really hope I can incorporate some o fit into my future grow :) Be well.

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

Hey John, Cheers. I've found that it's usually better to err on the side of having the lights too far apart. My test results for lights that hang separately sometimes surprise me regarding how much light the center picks coming from both directions. Thirds wouldn't be a bad place to start, and maybe edge them out a bit further depending on the size of the light.

@cory3640 3 жыл бұрын

Please make a video showing Automation with MQTT.

@JustinCase136 3 жыл бұрын

I've been following your 'How to automate your grow' series and was wondering if what you do with a Raspberry pi and Home assistant can be done with an Uno ? Love the automation tutorials by the way 👏

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

Oh I'm sure - It'd take a LOT more programming though. Like... a metric buttload.

@jamesbutler6938 3 жыл бұрын

Do you have any recommended methods of controlling the speed of a D.C. fan?

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

I followed this guy's video and used an IRLZ44N MOSFET with an ESP32: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ht1hnraExKyte58.html

@jamesbutler6938 3 жыл бұрын

@@LEDGardener cheers I’ll take a look. I’m setting up a water chiller system to cool the room. Rather than turning the fan off and on for the heat exchanger I plan to slow down and speed up the fan. Do you think this will work? I suppose I’ll have to monitor the room temp and if temp is +1 desired temp use low speed + 2 desired temp medium speed + 3 desired temp high speed?

@Ghanzo 3 жыл бұрын

What parts did you use for that gantry? How much did it end up costing?

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

I bought the shield/Uno combo from Amazon, as well as the motors, wheels, belts, pulleys, etc. The rails are v-slot as you might have guessed and I drew/modified all the white pieces you see in sketchup and 3D printed. I'd estimate these parts were $300-400CAD, not including all the lumber, mylar, fan, etc. for the enclosure itself.

@Ghanzo 3 жыл бұрын

@@LEDGardener would you mind posting the specific parts for the motors wheels belts and pulleys? Really impressive, these kinds of things usually cost thousands of dollars. You programmed all of it from scratch with the Arduino? Did you have to write a whole library? I guess the movements aren't too crazy but just little things like measuring how long something has to run to get to a position must have taken a lot of experimentation. Anyways really cool and thanks for sharing.

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

@@Ghanzo Sure thing, I'll reply back to this again in a bit with a list. Man, GRBL makes this SO easy - It's incredible software. All of the work is pretty much done for you. You can flash the Uno with the shield with GRBL, then use a program on windows like Universal Gcode Sender to calibrate and run your system. It's that easy. All I did was write some code for the NodeMCU to send gcode to the Uno that's flashed with GRBL, just so I didn't have to use UGS to send the commands.

@bungle555 3 жыл бұрын

Just throwing it out there - another approach might be to use OpenBuilds's ACRO system, which is meant for exactly this kind of stuff. It's like a CNC mill system but minus the requirement to support large lateral loads like you get when you dig into aluminum with a router bit. Useful for plotters, laser cutters, that sort of thing - but should work great to position a light meter, too. openbuilds.com/builds/openbuilds-acro-system.5416/

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

It looks beautiful. Looks like it’d be difficult to get the sensor close to the wall though on the X axis

@jamess1787 3 жыл бұрын

Love the videos. Keep them up! If you need some help with setting up something automated to run on the pi: hit me up. I can imagine doing some type of automated OCR to read the apogee screen, and using predefined XY coords via your mqtt enabled MCU, spitting it out in CSV to help you automate your light testing. Looks like you've done 90% of the work already :D

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

Nice. I'm currently running a little python script on my desktop that takes all the readings from the sensor and loads them into a CSV. There is no display to OCR in this case - I just have a little interface that allows my NodeMCU to read the sensor and fire those values off to my desktop over wifi.

@jamess1787 3 жыл бұрын

@@LEDGardener BEAUTIFUL. 100% complete.

@TheUnofficialMaker 3 жыл бұрын

you're smarter than the average gardener!

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

As you will soon see, I love the electronics but I'm a terrible gardener

@Swag22ify 3 жыл бұрын

Holy crap trips killed your garden. They are annoying but they usually don’t kill your plants. I would spray with a little Spinosad and you should have no more issues with thrips

@sebb1846 3 жыл бұрын

Do you have a Patreon? Be great to get content more often, and happy to contribute if that will help. Love the channel! :)

@LEDGardener 3 жыл бұрын

Hey Seb, thanks a lot for asking. I don't currently have one. Between working full time and looking after my kids, I'm pretty much using all my free time at night and the wee hours of the morning right now to work on videos, so I'd feel guilty accepting money under the guise of producing more content, if I wasn't really able to speed up much anyway. Just gotta get my big break (ha) so I can just do this full time - that'd be awesome.