Automated Hydroponics Box 05 Mar 2019 Reading time ~1 minute

This past year I have been working on an automated hydroponics project called Box Farm. One of the things that frustrated me the most, was a lack of an open-source project for hydroponic controls.

Towards Open Source

It would be great to have a standardized hydroponic controller that could be easily assembled using off-the-shelf components with good documentation or bought as its own kit. Here are a couple of the designs I came up with to suit that need:

The Box.

The features would include:

6 Controllable outlets

Sensor ports for temperature, EC, and pH

Wireless monitoring via Raspberry Pi

Ethernet inlet

Power switch and IEC plug.

Accessible front panel.

The same box could expand into a unit with peristaltic pumps autonomously controlled as well. The first design I came up with had that in mind:

The Box, with peri pumps attached.

If enough interest is there, I will put together the prototype. Until then:

As I continue to develop the box, I bought a Blue Lab Pro Controller and mounted it inside of a server box I bought on Amazon. I also put controllable LED’s to make it look like a true grow setup ;)

Installed Blue Labs with LEDs.

So far the growing has been great!

Batch of lettuce on the way.

Want to know more? Interested in working together? Contact me at jamesthesken@gmail.com