my computer controlled grow room - GrowControl 1.1

I'm putting together a computer controlled grow room. I already have a working prototype set up and working well for the last 2 or 3 months. here is what I have in the works. feel free to post your ideas or suggestions.

• the program is open source and free. you can get a full copy for free to try or use, or you can get a copy of the source code to make your own improvements to it.
• the hardware to use with the program is inexpensive to assemble yourself, or can be bought ready to plug in and use.
• the control box is what connects the computer to outlets, lights, pumps, and fans in the grow room. a single box can be used, or you can expand the system by adding up to 32 boxes to a single port on the computer.
• a single control box can easily run 4 separate grow rooms, each with it's own separately controlled light, pump, and fan.

reliability

• watchdog monitoring - a small program runs hidden in the background on the computer and keeps an eye on the main GrowControl program. if something goes wrong and the program dies or locks up, it will be automatically terminated and restarted to minimize downtime
• power monitoring - the program monitors the buildings power. if there is an outage or interruption in power, it is logged, an alert sent to you, and any HID lamps are prevented from hot starting and are left to cool before turned back on automatically.

security

• doors can be monitored and logs created of time and dates when they are opened and for how long.
• smoke alarm can turn everything off and send you an alert in case of a fire.

tools

• manual control of device ports for doing maintenance, adjustments, fine tuning, or troubleshooting.
• nutrient calculator - a built in tool to help you figure out exactly how much of each nutrient to add to your fresh mix. simple but handy

remote control

• web interface - the system can be monitored and adjusted by logging into a secure website built into the system. it can be accessed from any computer in the world with internet access.
• web cam - a built in web cam server sends live video to the web interface, and can periodically save shots of the room for logging.

the prototype version 1.0 has limited functionality and much is missing from the user interface. the first full version 1.1 is just about ready to start testing. I will use this thread to post updates on the project. I'd like to post pictures of the system, but I don't want to ruin the surprise.

Insane. Soon robots will do all of our growing...it'll be like the Matrix...except Neo will be Tommy Chong

PurpleHazeJohnny said:

Insane. Soon robots will do all of our growing...it'll be like the Matrix...except Neo will be Tommy Chong

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already started that project too. got a robotic arm on 2 sets of track wheels, with 3 cameras, a watering hose built in, and a laser cannon to shoot bugs. no, not really, but how cool would that be? lol

I was going to build something like this but I will wait till I move to a bigger place.
Stickin with timers for now.
A robotics student who i regularly smoke with helped me come up with a box you can bury in the ground and it auto grows and auto harvests all you have to do is at the end of the cycle go pick up a bag from a hole in the ground that has your dried nugs. Simply cure them and wallah!
Keep us updated, pictures and shit would be great. Have been working on this concept for a while.

I like this, how will it compare to the Growtronix product? I'm currently just running a grow cam in my tent: https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/102927-diy-guide-grow-cam-remote.html

lorenzo08 said:

already started that project too. got a robotic arm on 2 sets of track wheels, with 3 cameras, a watering hose built in, and a laser cannon to shoot bugs. no, not really, but how cool would that be? lol

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HAHAHAHA
That's bad ass, I want a spider mite killing laser. Think those powerful green ones that you see on youtube would work?

DIE BITCHES!!!! Only I can eat my plants lil bastards! Now burn in a data encrypted hell mites!

What are you writing the software in? C#? VB.Net?

Kludge said:

What are you writing the software in? C#? VB.Net?

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it would be nice to write cross-platform code in c or c++, maybe in the future. this program is written in visual basic 6. I chose to stay away from .net so it can more easily be run on older computers or on linux under wine.

With this program i assume you have to have the computer it is running on, on at all times?

Sounds like a pretty cool thing to have.

lorenzo08 said:

it would be nice to write cross-platform code in c or c++, maybe in the future. this program is written in visual basic 6. I chose to stay away from .net so it can more easily be run on older computers or on linux under wine.

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Oh, well in the future you might want to look at Mono if you are serious about wanting Linux support. You can write native C# code for Linux and Windows.

And who cares about older computers? People with older computers are assholes that are holding back society, I say fuck 'em. That's right, I'm talking about you grandmother...

Arrid said:

With this program i assume you have to have the computer it is running on, on at all times?

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yes, and a battery backup is a good idea to have too. a couple bucks at walmart for one of those. nothing special is needed, no vista requirements or gigs of ram... just grab an old pentium 400mhz or something, windows 2000 should be reliable, just don't go surfing with it and get it loaded with spam. those older systems are often pretty robust and more efficient then newer systems. my one amd 300mhz I use for a linux internet router. the cpu fan died on that one time and it still ran for hours until I found the problem.

Kludge said:

Oh, well in the future you might want to look at Mono if you are serious about wanting Linux support. You can write native C# code for Linux and Windows.

And who cares about older computers? People with older computers are assholes that are holding back society, I say fuck 'em. That's right, I'm talking about you grandmother...

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hah, calm down. new computers are nice, but old ones still have their place! my main computer has 1gb ram and dual monitors. not the fastest, but still not bad. old computers under 1ghz still can be useful. I have one in my living room, I think it's a 1.6 ghz or something, I run centos and vmware server on it. I can boot up any os virtually on it when I need to test something. my web server is a 1.8 ghz celeron, works great. I'm running brazil firewall on an amd 300mhz. I bet it can out perform a $5000 cisco router, and besides the cpu fan dieing, it has only crashed on me once in the last 3 years.

mono, I have checked into it a little, but it's still a little to young. there are still some things missing in the ide and I have to learn how to use it. I still have trouble even getting it to install. its day will come, just not yet for me.

MisterNiceGuy said:

HAHAHAHA
That's bad ass, I want a spider mite killing laser. Think those powerful green ones that you see on youtube would work?

DIE BITCHES!!!! Only I can eat my plants lil bastards! Now burn in a data encrypted hell mites!

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100mw HA! I just rebuilt a 4000watt CO2 laser this week.
(just a laser geek)

Lorenzo! Dude, I dig the software. Seems killer

BigBudBalls said:

100mw HA! I just rebuilt a 4000watt CO2 laser this week.
(just a laser geek)

Lorenzo! Dude, I dig the software. Seems killer

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do you have a robot attached to that laser? what are you waiting for? go mount it on your car or something!

well me and a friend have been working on ideas for a while also. If everyone whos working on this same thing. seems like theres a lot of us comes here and contributes we may actually finish one

bearo420 said:

well me and a friend have been working on ideas for a while also. If everyone whos working on this same thing. seems like theres a lot of us comes here and contributes we may actually finish one

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I like that thought. once I have my program finished, I'll post the code online and maybe a few people will add their own stuff and make it something really amazing.

one thing I'm having trouble with is finding sensors to hook into the system. I have a few different options for temperature, but I still need relative humidity, res temps, ph, ppm... any ideas? trying to keep costs down.

lorenzo08 said:

do you have a robot attached to that laser? what are you waiting for? go mount it on your car or something!

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LOL. No. Its one of my customer's Just a 1/2 mill and I can set ya up with a new one. Will cut up to 1 inch / 25mm steel. Pierce through it in 1.5 seconds or less.

Hey, you releasing that source? Whats it programmed in? Wouldn't mind trying to porting it to the Mac.

This sounds pretty awesome lorenzo08!

I'd love to get on your beta testers list...

Where can you get the details on building the control boxes and other hardware required?

Also, is version 1.0 available to check out?

Thanks, love the project! Rep+

lorenzo08 said:

I like that thought. once I have my program finished, I'll post the code online and maybe a few people will add their own stuff and make it something really amazing.

one thing I'm having trouble with is finding sensors to hook into the system. I have a few different options for temperature, but I still need relative humidity, res temps, ph, ppm... any ideas? trying to keep costs down.

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I gave ya the pH and EC sensors. Temp should be a no brainer. An epoxy encapsulated (to water proof it. Keep in mind DI or RO water can be kinda caustic) thermistor will work fine. Just a simple whetstone bridge to get the accuracy dumped into a AD. Humidity? Dallas/Maxim must have something. Parallax (sp?) has a near SPI Temp/RH sensor. Got two in for eval myself.

Costs is the costs. A good system has good components.

Lovin this thread, I'll put together some of my ideas and place them here when I have time.
Anyone like the idea of an automated system that cuts and drys the plant and the rockwool cubes are on a track that a motor moves when the plant is done to restart the grow.