First DWC Kind LED K5 - XL750 + Custom electronics

themachinegrow

New Member
Hello I'm new on this forum and this is my first thread.
I created an account on this forum because it is one of the growing forums with the more technical post especially when talking about DIY grow LED lights, I love technical stuf and electronics is my specialty.

I started my endeavor a about 6 months ago building a grow room. And I'm growing for about 4 weeks now (just switched to flowering schedule, or I believe you guys call it the flip)

I would like to focus on the electronics in this thread and would like to hear suggestions for features, modules or other things. I'm also willing to answer some questions about electronics.

The grow room:
Model growroom Xray.png
I build 2 rooms. The left room is for drying the harvest and is connected to the growing room. The air is sucked through an inlet filter and enter the drying room and through an other hole (lower left corner of growing room) enter the grow room (the hole is not present in this 3D model). on top of the room is a filter box.
The filterbox (without top):
Filterbox top view open.png
The filterbox consists of a 750m3 fan in a softbox and a 1000m3 carbon filter (can lite but refilled it with beter quality activated air filter carbon).also the filter is surrounded with sound proofing foam.

The Fan controller:
AC controller Xray.png

Fan controller1.jpg
Fan controller without faceplate2.png

I designed and build a custom fan controller with the following features:
  • Control fan speed from 0 -100%
  • Can-bus to connect the module to a Can network (I will probably not use this function because the next revision will communicate wireless)
  • Motor temperature sensor (to detect failure & possibility to lower the speed, motor is aircooled so temperature must be meassured or fanspeed must exeed 50% to be safe).
  • Air temperature and humidity sensor.
  • Filter to prevent noise on the electrical net
  • Relay to cut power if Triac (semiconductor used for phase angle control) fails and to prevent leakage current that heats the motor coils.
  • Overload protection both ac and DC, with fuses
  • current sensor. to detect if motor is functioning normally. could also be used to estimate power usage.
  • Manual control pot. (blue light = motor off; green light = manual 0-100%; blinking white= automatic control based on air temperature and humidity; red light = error, type of error depends on blinking frequency)
  • Aluminium enclosure, nice and durable.
Distribution panel:
Distribution panel1.jpg

  • Lightning protection
  • Earth leakage protection
  • 2x 10A type C circuit breakers
  • Power meter (True, Reactive, and Apparent Power, Total power and current power usage, frequency, current and voltage)
Timer switch panel
Switch panel.png
  • 3 solid state relay, for switching 3 sockets.
  • 12V supply for custom electronics (not in use at the moment)
  • 5V supply for RTC timer board
  • RTC (real time clock) timer board. timers can be configured to control the sockets
  • DIY fuse block. every unit on the panel has its own fuse.

Week0 seedlings:

Grow week 0 seedlings.jpg

Week1 veg:
Grow week 1.jpg

Thingsspeak:
thingspeak.png


I'm currently at week 1 flowering. but can't at more pictures will add later (the girls are a lot bigger now). Also I would like to focus more on the electronics.

Thing I will add to this thread when I have time:
  • DIY water cooler, How I created one (including electronics)
  • DIY LED led controller/timer with touchscreen already in development (need help selecting right features like the amount of 10V PWM outputs and amount of cooling fan outputs and more) I'm planning to sell some of these units, I saw the controllers that are for sale now and the ridiculous prices and lacking features. I can make something better:bigjoint:
  • Wifi temp humidity and light data logger. you can check the conditions in my growroom live @: https://thingspeak.com/channels/113979 I will also develop an easy to use cheap module for this. thingsspeak is great you can store almost unlimited logs for free.
  • Wifi IP camera to check your grow from anywhere in the world
  • GSM safety system connects to smoke detectors and motion alarm. get an SMS when something is triggered. (in development)
  • Automated nutrient doser. (in development)
  • WIFI water quality logger [PH, EC and water temperature].
  • WIFI air quality module [CO2, temperature and humidity] (in development)
  • How to get a chinese 34 euro airpump with a few modifications to outperform a 120 euro airpump (Liter/min and noise levels)
Please let me know if you have any ideas for custom electronics that will benefit growers. As side project I'm already designing some I deem important. I hope to create my own company one day and sell some of these electronics specifically for growing:weed:.
 
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