Using one doesn't preclude the other.
no, it does not, but i highly recommend gaining significant proficiency at growing before you try automating...you don't even know what it is you're trying to automate till you have at least a couple of successful hands on grows under your belt...
See, blumats for me are more automation alone than all my stuff combined. The rest is just climate controlling (temp/humidity triggered exhaust/intake fans, humidifier triggers, timers for lights and fans.).
i do use timers for my lights, guess that's one more piece of automation
I do all my watering and feeding by hand. The rest of my tent environmental conditions I run timers/sensors and adjust on the fly as needed.
We already have that ability with a trolmaster hydro -x pro model
i'm almost always home. i walk in my garden, and feel that it's a little too humid, and i turn up the exhaust fan. i watch the weather, and know when it's going to be especially warm or cold, and deal with it as it happens. i realize some people have to travel, and if they want to automate, then that's their business, but i'm hardly ever gone more than two days at a time, and would rather deal with it hands on
Trollmastet stuff is the business... its really good
A human hygrometer. Amazing.
Trolmaster works well I think. I’m still out there all the time to check. But I have it controlling mini splits and anden dehuey, c02 and lights.
. I haven't put my code on GitHub, but if anyone is interested I'd be more than happy to share.
That is awesome. What model RPI are you running? I have various spare ones.I use a Raspberry PI to control and monitor parts of my grow tent. Not that I really need to, but I've been learning how to program in Python and I thought it would be a fun pandemic hobby to cobble together a system. Also, sensors for the RPi are shockingly cheap; I have temperature, humidity, CO2, and luminosity senors, as well as a camera, which altogether cost less than $100. It's also able to control the power to the fans, lights, and humidifier. Right now, it collects data every minute and stores it to a cloud-based server, which I can also use to send commands to the RPi. Obviously this is all absolute OVERKILL for a 3x3 home tent, but I've had a blast figuring it all out
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Oh, and I can put together fun dashboards with all kinds of bells and whistles!
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Can you download scripts for different functions instead of coding them yourself?I use a Raspberry PI to control and monitor parts of my grow tent. Not that I really need to, but I've been learning how to program in Python and I thought it would be a fun pandemic hobby to cobble together a system. Also, sensors for the RPi are shockingly cheap; I have temperature, humidity, CO2, and luminosity senors, as well as a camera, which altogether cost less than $100. It's also able to control the power to the fans, lights, and humidifier. Right now, it collects data every minute and stores it to a cloud-based server, which I can also use to send commands to the RPi. Obviously this is all absolute OVERKILL for a 3x3 home tent, but I've had a blast figuring it all out
View attachment 5046552
Oh, and I can put together fun dashboards with all kinds of bells and whistles!
View attachment 5046558
It's a Raspberry Pi 4 model B. I had originally started with a RPi Zero W, which works great, but I've been playing around with using Redis to store the sensor data for the dashboard and Redis requires a 64-bit OS.
Yes and No. For the sensors (e.g., temperature, humidity, CO2, etc...) there are scripts that you can download and use. But, in order to get everything to play nicely together, coding is required. For example, I found out (the hard way) that it's VERY important that your code consider various fail-safes. Similar to the original post, I experienced a situation last year during one of my first grows, where a power outage caused the Raspberry Pi to reboot, thus ending the routine. Unfortunately, this meant that the lights, humidifier, and fans defaulted to on. There was so much moisture in the grow tent I pretty much had to squeegee down the walls!
So, consequently, I had to learn how to include various fail safes-- some just as a simple as making sure the main script boots up if the RPi reboots.