Automated Greenhouse (Arduino)

One of my many hobbies is gardening: I grow tropical plants for my room, flowers for the yard, and vegetables for the garden. One of the many problems of growing plants in the Midwest is the ridiculously short growing season. The growing window is usually from mid-May to mid-September, and the rest of the year is either cold like the winter or actually is winter. One way people extend the growing season is to start growing their plants in a greenhouse, but that can come with a variety of problems...
Code, Transcript, and Circuit Design:
github.com/benjlang/Automated...
Email: [e-mail]

[@kirkanderson1776]

I would suggest adding humidity sensing to the mix as well as outdoor air temperature. Use outdoor air temperatures to determine heating and cooling cycles, use a deadband switch to modulate each cycle to further improve controls. You could even modulate the dampers before fans and use natural convection to create airflow without powering a fan, based on a min/max. Use a slope/intercept variable to calculate damper positions to maintain certain targets/setpoints. Also consider using heat to de-humidify during 'those' days.

[@alanmcrae8594]

Nice project! Very creative solution to a practical problem. And you used very inexpensive commodity products. Love it!

[@inkytu7]

You have nailed it!! It is a bit ’Heath-Robinson’ but you are a maker in my style. Well done. 😊

[@james11h]

Imagine if you could set up tubing and a solenoid to turn on a mist to water the plants when the soil reaches a certain moisture level. Like in a grocery store. Would be fully-automated.

[@bnuggg]

this is exactly what i plan on doing with my garden this year!

[@pihome4108]

Nicely Done! Thank You

[@dhaval32mistry]

Nice project

[@charlenesieracki1175]

Amazing!

[@redfordmetal]

Really nice! I would consider improving this system by replacing the Uno by an ESP32 + Arduino IoT or Blynk IO Platform. Thus enabling remote monitoring, configuration, alarms and other features.

[@AveryCreates]

This is incredibly cool! Will you be coming back to youtube?

[@sajza1728]

That was a great project of full automated greenhouse. Thanks! Just a quick question. Do you run such project for people as well if someone asks you? If so, what is your conditions? Many thanks.

[@nobody121962]

Thanks for charing this project with us. Can you please send an readeble diagram ?

[@JamesWattMusic]

4:05 why did u tape the AC adapter to the wire like that, instead of plugging directly into last plug ? I like how you use things you have lying around. Also do you have any temp data to show how well it regulates temperature?

[@benjamin_lang]

I ended up taping the 12v power supply to an AC cord to plug it in. I only did this because the waterproof box wouldn't close otherwise. Waterproof cases/bins are fairly expensive to buy, especially when they are large like the one I am using. The reason why I used tape instead of soldering is that soldering adapters poses the risk of melting the internal components. I originally had a tracking system to monitor the number of minutes the heater and the fans ran for. I used a Bluetooth module, along with a tablet to do so. I regulate the temperature in the greenhouse to be in the range of 60F-78F. From the data, I estimated that on an "average" spring day (32F-50F), the heater ran for 2.7 hours, which would equate to about 50 cents for 24 hours. I also covered the greenhouse with blankets at night to help with insulting it. Electric heaters are not a viable long-term solution for heating as it is very expensive; however, I only use my greenhouse for a month out of the year, so it is not that big of an issue.

[@Jkmmjbn9615]

I wish you went further into the water cycling aspect of this project

[@benjamin_lang]

Preventing cycling is important because of the relays I am using to control the fans and the heater. These relays have a lifespan and it is based on the amount of times it has to switch states. Preventing cycling allows the lifespan of the relay modules to become greater. It may not seem like a big issue; however, if cycling prevents three times the switching, then the modules should last three times longer.

[@ryanhurray1469]

Those are

[@pontuslandin6883]

Are the fan running constantly during the hottest days or could you have gone for a smaller fan?