This is my first journal on this site with this screen name. This has a certain measure of sentiment to me as the last time I was a member, I studied the content of the site at that time for well over a year before starting my first grow. That began at the end of 2002, back when everyone was talking a lot about FIM. Some 15 years later, I made a new account with my 420 screen name and here is my grow.
The title gives the general details, but the methods are derived from something called Simple Hydroponics, a.k.a. Capn Style. Some years back, during my first grow in soil, The Capn messaged me (over on 420) and offered a shit load of help. I slowly merged into growing using his methods and have been doing so ever since (that is when I’m growing). His methods are geared towards max yields from min plant counts, so this entails an extended veg period, frequent topping, frequent transplants and the use of beneficial bacteria (Real Grower’s Recharge). We use mini rock wool cubes (1cm x 1cm or 1/2" x 1/2"), and he has found transplanting does not experience shock, at least not for more than a day. Perhaps the use of bennies greatly reduces TP shock.
Also as the title suggests, I am in full pursuit of complete grow room automation and remote control. I estimate to be about 70% complete in my project and it is my intent to share all circuits and code to the best of my ability with other users completely free of charge. Let me be up front about something, it was the desire to build this project that has lead me to learn the basic skills needed to get as far as a I did. I have a pretty extensive DIY back ground, so adopting these new skills was likely less painful to me than it would be to others with less experiences. That said, my project is likely full of flaws, is completely unprofressional looking, and likely also falls very short of being code compliant, but I am confident in my knowledge to know which rules I can bend, and how far. Further inspection of @r-man’s project, I see the bar has been set way higher than I intend to reach, at least in the near future. Having spent a fair amount of time reading his code, I can see his understanding is far superior to mine, and his system is way more thought out and built than mine. If I had to use adjectives, I’d liken him to an engineer, whereas I’m just a hobbiest with only very basic circuit building and code writing skills. Still, if anyone chooses to copy what I did, I’ll be more than glad to share and hopefully save you a lot of growing pains that I had to endure.
Thus far, I have a microcontroller unit (MCU) called Ethermega, and it is a combination between an Arduino Mega 2560 and an Ethernet shield. There is also some added functionality with this board, plus has some added pins that I already found convenient. The MCU reads a clock and executes time based events that usually correlate to devices powered by relays, so light A turns on for 12 hours, then light B, feed times throughout the day etc. Also, in each of my bloom rooms, I have a single Temp/Humidity sensor, and based upon preset high and low values, things like exhaust fans cycle on. The project is online thanks to a free Android and IOS app called Blynk. The app is stupid easy to use and simple functionality like turning MCU pins on and off can be achieved without knowing how to right any code at all. All that’s required is basic knowledge of how to install libraries and upload Arduino code. Using the app is completely free, but buying the “widgets” cost “energy” points. New members receive 2000 energy points, and the average price of a widget is 200 points to 500 points. I went ahead and spent the one time fee of $10 to get roughly 20,000 more energy points to build the app on my phone the way I want to. You’ll see what I mean in the videos I shot today. Every cell in my app is called a widget. Some widgets are value displays, another is an LCD, another is a debugging monitor, some are value selectors, and one is a different type of selector (Nutrients). When building your app, if you have a widget that you no longer want to use, you can delete it and the energy it cost to purchase that widget is returned to your account and will never expire. All of that said, one can do a lot with just $10 and extend the functionality of the MCU exponentially!
My grow now consists of a veg closet that measure 3’6" x 2’ x 7’6" and I have 3 Bubblelicious clones that are doing very well. In bloom I have a single Bubble Gum. I have 2 bloom rooms and a center staging area. Each room measures 3’6" x 3’6" x 7’6".
Update pt 1
Update pt 2
