[Draft][Help wanted]Open Source Grow Robot

Before starting this off i will briefly explain my Background. I am Mechatronics Engineer with little to no hands on Experience in growing MJ. I have toyed for some time with idea of building a growbox.
I approach this from a hobby angle I want to do as much as possible by myself. As Perfectionist I take pride in my work so my goal is not to shoot for the low hanging fruits but for the most elegant and efficient solutions out there.
While I have read up a lot of theoretical background about indoor cultivation of plants, light, irrigation….. there is a lot of knowledge out there that people might want to share.
As long Term goal I envision a system that makes growing plants easier by monitoring all process parameters of relevance ( light, humidity , temperature , airflow , nutrient mix/ppm&#8230
The reason I came here is that I believe in Opensource hardware and the power of the crowd. One person alone can only do/know so much. Everybody has different skills and backgrounds and if we combine them we are better off altogether.


What I can bring to the table is
- Basic Mechanical/Structural Design & CAD
- Basic Airflow and Heat transfer FEM
- Design and Implementation of Control Loops
- Design and Implementation of Multi Axis Linear Movement Systems
- Circuit Design and Microcontroller Programming (AVR/Cortex M)
- SMPS / Constant Current / LED PWM
- Building Prototypes via CNC Mill / Laser cutter / 3D Printing


What I am searching for is
- Advice on everything Plant related
. Nutrients, Genetics, Absorbed Wavelenghts …
- Hands on knowledge on the Technology that is out there and currently being used
- Air Filtration
... I guess I could get on here for Pages…


This Thread is basically a collection of concepts/ideas i want to implement to Grow more efficient / ideas you might have to grow more efficent.
If you find an faults in asumptions feel free to point em out. I am apreciate input.

Proposed Featureset
(in oder of importance)

Current Controll For Leds
Day/Night Cycle Control
Led Configuration Profiles ( Veg / Flower / GreenOnly)
Controll of Flood/Drain System
Temperature Monitoring & Control ( via In/Outlet Fan)
Profile based Nutrient Mixing ( Veg / Flower / Pre-Harvet)
PPM Monitoring
Humidity Monitoring
X-Y-Z Light Mover (for increased light coverage)


Any cool ideas for this List?

(..Reserved2..)

Best thing u can do is just read until your eyes bleed. And im not sure what ur getting at. Using a 6axis robot is probably not gona help buds grow on a plant.? Good luck tho!

umbrellacorp said:

Best thing u can do is just read until your eyes bleed. And im not sure what ur getting at. Using a 6axis robot is probably not gona help buds grow on a plant.? Good luck tho!

Click to expand...

Wow i didnt expect sb to post that fast. The main objective of this thread is to PeerReview the Information i gathered so far. But i will get to it one point at a time

So lets start of with....

Led-Lights

After a quick look on CCFL, HPS and MH focused my Light research on LED lighning as it already has huge benefits (on paper) and still a lot of untapped potential

Types
The currently available Leds that I could find viable sourcing channels for are:
Standard High Brightness Leds
Highpower 1W on Aluminiumcore PCB
Most Efficent on a Lumen/Watt Base
Highpower 3W on Aluminiumcore PCB
Slightly Less Efficent but reduces Number of Leds required and therefore complexity
Diamond Shape 10W-100W Led Arrays
Most Efficent on a Lumen/$$$ Base


Did i Miss anything important here?

Lenses
The 1/3 Watt Highpowerled come with Lenes in 60/90/120° flavours.
The 100Watt Arrays do not have any Lenses and have a default angle of 160° Is this an issue?
There seems to a controversy about 60° beeing better for penetration and 90° beeing a better tradeoff for coverage.

My current take would be to use
1W Leds with 60° Lenses.
Due to the large number of spots coverage would be less of an issue.
The lower TDP (thermal dissipation power) should also allow denser packaging. This would be (by my current Knowledge) the best choice.

Any Ideas on this?

Inteligent Powersupply

This is where i see a lot of Potential. At best People seem to use multiple generic constant current powersupplies or linear regulators.
A more efficent and elegant solution would be one central high efficency SMPS ( Meanweel clones@48Volt have about 83 efficency).
In order to switch those Leds on and off for Day and Night Cycle you need a switch anyway. This concludes we use Mosfets to switch those leds.
This allows us to Switch invididual Leds in the Array on and Off.
By Adding a Current Sense Cicuit and hooking those up to the Microcontrollers built in ADC you gain the ability to monitor and regulate the leds currents.
Diodes like Leds do not have static current requirements. They change rapidly with temperature and voltage.
A Sensor Base CurrentControll Loop can activly compensate this changes and therefore maximize the Lightouput.
The current can then also be fine tuned to every Led-type and is not limited to a fixed current as found on some units.

Advantages:
Integrated Day-Nigh Cycle Controll
Reconfigurable Led Pattern for vegitation / flowering.
Lower Powersupply Investment by using a central SMPS
More Efficency due to Powersupply centralizeation.
Prolong Led Life through a tighter current loop.
Increase in Led Efficency by adjustable current supply.

Did i miss any cheap chinese gadget that does this allready?
( no need to reinvent the wheel then)

X-Y-Z Lightmover
(reserved)

WHOA! this is too damn technical for me lol . . . . I think the best way to learn is with experience bro, then the ideas will flow, especially if your already brainstorming and throwing around ideas before you've even started? Or have you? But do as most of us probably have done and read the marijuana bible, watch tutorial videos on youtube . . Look up Jorge cervantes he's the author of one of the bibles and also posts lots of videos, he has a useful video about growing start to finish (including room construction) its called jorge cervantes ultimate grow . . . .this video might be a little older but you will get the basic info that you need for growing.