53 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
53 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
# Vertical Garden
|
|
|
|
## Aim
|
|
To build a solar powered aeroponics vertical tower to grow vegetables, using 3D printed parts and off the shelf or reused components.
|
|
|
|
## Theory
|
|
* The vertical tower has a resevoir as a base, a small pump is used to pump water (+ nutritents) up the central column and then the water cascades down inside coating the netcups and roots of the growing plants.
|
|
* The control and power come from a outdoor solar power bank that sits next to the tower, it relays data to the home network.
|
|
|
|
<img src="https://git.solarcene.community/smallsolar/VerticalGarden/raw/commit/92ebb4084bc3095261a2120409401f12f016b55b/images/IMG_20250607_114724.jpeg" width=800 height="auto" alt="Tower and Powerbank">
|
|
|
|
## Vertical Aeroponics Tower
|
|
|
|
### Construction
|
|
* This is a well known 3d printed design, originally designed by boundarycondition and uploaded to Thingiverse however the account and design have since been deleted. It however has been cloned and adapted, I used files from [makerworld](https://makerworld.com/en/models/65860-modular-hydroponic-tower-garden#profileId-463219).
|
|
* Printing took a while and used about 2Kg of recycled filament from [3DQF](https://www.3dqf.co.uk/), I had issues printing the piece that connected the tower to the bucket lid as it turns out there is a cool spot on my printer bed (Back Right) and the print kept failing, in the end I used prusaslicer to make a dovetail cut and printed it in 2 parts and then glued it together.
|
|
* I used a 20L white bucket with a lid for the base resevoir
|
|
* The pump was a 12v submersible pump, it draws about 18-20W, it claims it can pump 800L/H, it took a while to find a 12V pump as most pumps are designed to be wired to the mains (110-240v).
|
|
|
|
### Planting
|
|
* 1st round of planting used rockwool starter cubes and I planted lettuce and a single cabbage. I didn't have enough starter cubes so there are a number of spare sockets on the tower. Early feedback was that I kept the starters inside before moving them out to the tower too long and they've got a big 'leggy' and so are struggling to support their weight.
|
|
* 2nd round is an experiment with using jiffy pellets, I'm going to try a few more cabbages as the original cabbage is doing great. Instead of getting them really established inside once I've seen some germination I've put them into the tower as the weather is warm right now, hopefully they won't get as 'leggy'.
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Outdoor Solar Power Bank
|
|
|
|
### Components
|
|
* 12v 50W Solar Panel
|
|
* 'Stanley' Tool Box
|
|
* LiFePO4 12v 20Ah Battery (Leoch LFP1220 - we have a local battery shop so I went there rather than order a cheaper battery online)
|
|
* Victron SmartSolar MPPT 75|10 Charger
|
|
* [DFRobot Beetle ESP32 C6](https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2778.html)
|
|
* MOSFET
|
|
* Kickback Diode
|
|
* 12v to 5v stepdown converter
|
|
* Some connectors
|
|
|
|
<img src="https://git.solarcene.community/smallsolar/VerticalGarden/raw/commit/b37b16b5cc3664cd3468e88d1841530369de3a08/images/IMG_20250612_073609.jpeg" width=800 height="auto" alt="Solar Power Bank">
|
|
|
|
### Hardware
|
|
* The 12v 50W solar panel was from eBay, it has been positioned to sit on top of the power bank box to help keep the rain off the box (as it isn't particularly waterproof) but also due to the position of the device near to our house angling the panel to optimise the sunlight isn't actually helpful, instead just sitting flat means it gets enough sun throughout the day.
|
|
* The Victron SmartSolar Charger was chosen as its high quality, has an excellent app, I already use Victron products but also it has a serial interface and more recently its been possible to intercept and decode the BLE packets to get the internal data. (Its worth the extra cost).
|
|
* The ESP32 was chosen as it is easy to program and also has WiFi and BLE.
|
|
|
|
### Software
|
|
* The ESP32 acts as the main controller, it is powered via stepdown converter from the main 12v output from the SmartSolar charger and controls a mosfet which can turn the water pump on and off.
|
|
* It also uses bluetooth receiver to intercept the BLE packets broadcast from the SmartSolar charger, decodes them and then forwards them via WiFi to my home network to be displayed on my grafana dashboard.
|
|
* Measures the ESP32 temperature and also sends this data to grafana (not working currently)
|
|
|
|
<img src="https://git.solarcene.community/smallsolar/VerticalGarden/raw/commit/cfc437f61bd937a50adcbed686b58901fa389d90/images/grafana_dashboard.jpeg" width=800 height="auto" alt="Grafana Dashboard">
|
|
|
|
## Future Plans
|
|
* There is lots of room to increase capacity of the system either by extending the tower by adding more layers or by putting together a second tower, the pump should be able to pump enough to provide water to multiple towers. |