Accept and Give - Free and opensource automated hydroponics.

Hi,

Over the last year I have learned that the GrowBot #1 needs about 10 hours a day of sunshine to function properly.

Partial clouds are OK but anything less than 5 hours of direct sunlight and the GrowBot #1's don't have enough power to operate the computer.

Without the computer the watering, feeding and picture taking don't happen.

Fortunately manually topping off the water and adding the nutrients is not hard and does not take long.

Generally the circulation pumps will continue to keep the roots healthy with just an hour of light per day.

Because our network is monitoring the GrowBots we can send reminders to continue to pick from your GrowBot as well as to top off the water and nutrients if we see that your GrowBot is offline.

I have not been ignoring these challenges, accepting limitations, giving up, nor asleep. Hence I have been designing GrowBot #2 as well as addressing other things I have seen.

GrowBot #2 supports working in far less light. GrowBot #2 has a very advanced power management circuit that uses power generated by a solar cell that is 3 x larger than the current solar cell. The new circuit also runs on far lower power than the present circuit. Basicallly I am doing everything I can to make sure GrowBot #2 works great even in really poor sunlight.

GrowBot #2 also will have a new case for the computers and solar powered batteries. The case has a very special one way valve(patent pending) that will purge moisture that happens to get inside. So far at least I have learned that water will always get in to some of the cases.

The #1 reason a GrowBot #1 fails is when an electro-mechanical relay gets exposed to moisture. Inside of those electro-mechanical relays is hair thin copper wire that corrodes very quickly. GrowBot #2 has solid state relays.

GrowBot #2 will also have a wide angle camera lens that allows it to see the full GrowBot bed this helps the computer to adjust nutrients with a higher level of precision.

2 New GrowBots

Smaller and Cheaper

Quite a few requests for a smaller GrowBot and for a cheaper GrowBot.

In some respects the technical challenges of moisture causing the electro-mechanical relays to fail and yards that were far more shady than I had imagined were a blessing.

It challenged me to think about ways to get the GrowBot to work under any and all conditions.

I have done my work.

I did not take 'no' for answer when people did not buy. I kept asking and finding out why. The biggest was not enough room and no yard. So I built a GrowBot that takes up a lot less space.

I watched how people use the GrowBots.

I noticed I had put one of my own limitations on everyone else(I have a hard time sticking to a schedule).

Once I realized most people have really organized lives year after year it became clear that the "really awesome" automation ... is not useful for everyone.

If you take just a few moments twice a week to add nutrients and top off the water the GrowBot will do great. So I built a GrowBot that is simpler and cheaper almost 50% cheaper. 

I am hoping that this email finds you well.