Hi guys,
the last days I was looking for a grow room controller which I could use for my purposes. I was really interested in using one with open source software because then I might have been able to fully customize it to my needs. Understanding the software part would be easy for me, as I studied computer science in university. Also I have an electrician at hand. I don’t want to develop the software from scratch, as this would be a waste of time, if there are already good projects. Also if the assembly of the hardware is not expensive, I would be willing to pay for it.
Most interesting I did find the projects:
growduino
growmat
yieldbuddy
raspiviv
I am tending towards growduino, as it seems to be the most professional one. Especially hardware wise it seems well crafted at a reasonable price.
I really wonder how many other projects are out there, which I missed while searching the net for them. I wonder if there are projects like that which are based on newer hardware platforms?
If you know any other projects, please feel free to write them here!
I also will describe you my setup, so maybe you can give me some advice, which grow room controller to choose:
Ok, I have two rooms. In total there are:
4x 700 Watt lamps
750 Watt dehumidifier
total 100 Watt by 3 small pumps
total 500 Watt in several fans
750 Watt bigger pump
total 600 Watt of mother plant light tubes
also maybe if it is too cold: electric heater with maybe 750 to 1000W
and finally I want to operate something between 4 to 8 solenoids, which regulate the water flow. If I will use 8 solenoids instead of 4, then 4 four inlet solenoids will be connected with 4 drain solenoids, which means that you can probably control them electrically together…
Counting this together would be 6500 Watt. My circuits are 16 amps and 1.5mm^2. I think I should use like 4 electric circuits.
Also it seems like, I would need a fair amount of electrical sockets… Is there any restriction in the amount of sockets with these systems?
Ok, for the sensors I would need the following:
temperature
humidity
CO2
Ph and EC
Maybe I want to have these sensors in each room. That would double the amount of sensors. Is there any restriction in the amount of sensors that I could use?
Then the features that I also would need:
Internet connectivity
optional camera… would it be possible to connect a camera for surveillance?
Finally, as I am based in Europe… it would also be interesting to see if there are sellers based in europe…