Plants

2021

2021-02-12

gardenbed start, with first plants

Motivation

The plant collection is becoming big and with an almost only north facing set of windows, the plants were only growing slowly. I had previously done smaller artificial illumination projects:

• 2019-07 to 2019-09: A two-spot ordinary reading lamp to augment sunlight in a dark spot as part of an aeroponics project in a bucket with greenhouse film to isolate the mist-ified root system from the outer environment.
• 2019-09 to 2020-08: A multiple LED-strip setup as a bigger continuation of the previous project, in a total of four rectangular boxes with one 5 meter strip for lighting, split up in 5 for 100cm breadth of lit area.

Project

Bought legs (250cm /4= ) 62.5cm and screws, and built the frame to elevate the bed by 62.5cm. For the lighting, added:

• 3:1/red:blue 10m strip, so in 5x 2m parts.
• 3m double, warm white:cold white, about 12-24W strip in one 2m strip and joined 1m with next strip:
• Old led strips are repurposed too, one 12W 5m in two 2m strips and 1m joined with the above.

Current wiring

Power accross a 11m long DC wire, all strip terminations are in parallel on the legs end of the bed, notice the black cable on the picture.

2021-02-16

Standard pots

Bought three 95*37cm rectangular underpots and some corresponding standard-sized pots to fit in them: This is planned to be the dominant pot size, 1.5L and 15cm ø at the top, 13.5cm high. 12 pots per underpot and there is place for 5 underpots. Most plants from the window are now under the gardenbed. Also bought some more standard pots and some soil.

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  gardenbed leg screw fixation

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  gardenbed leg screw fixation

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  gardenbed light strips layout

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  gardenbed light layout

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  gardenbed with plants

2021-03

Seedlings

Progress on some vegetable (zucchini) seedlings, and planted some garlic too, which sprouted. The lemon seedling from 2020 though seems dry.

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  gardenbed progress seedlings

gardenbed progress

2021-04

The little orchids attached to the mother plant have started flowering on themselves. The Amaryllis seeds have successfully sprouted. The garlic has dried out and died.

New Lights

Bought 20m of high power light strips to extend the lighting and balance it a bit more to the white. It also now takes about twice as much power.

Ventilation

There are now ventilation fans on the legs end of the bed, for cooling the lightstrips and also providing some ventilation to the plants, preventing stale air.

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  orchid white phalaenopsis three small ones

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  orchid white phalaenopsis thee little ones

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  amaryllis seeds sprouting

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  gardenbed lighting update

2021-05

Thicker wires, more power

Added some more fans to the ventilation. Changed out the 11m cable for a thicker 2.5mm², allowing more power and therefore more brightness.

2021-06

Bought some more standard pots.

2021-09

Added some foam behind the ventilation fans to filter the air a bit. Bought more standard pots and soil.

White orchid multiplies

The white orchid had three little offshoots, two of which were big enough so I separated and repotted them. This was while flowering so they may be pertubed a bit.

Electronics rewiring

Major rewiring on the electronics side, the following changes were made:

• swap around side of lights: head end of bed is now where the strips are connected to power
• disconnect 11m 2.5mm² thick wire and swap it out for a two-step transistor+relay system: the power supply now is at the nearest outlet to the strip connections and there is a thin 11m wire that only carries a 3.3v (10mA maybe?) signal, which controls a 12v relay switching the AC, through a 12v transistor

All this increased brightness noticeably, measurements: 11.4V 10A (=114W) before rewiring and at PSU end, only 9V at LEDs end. After: 10.5V 20A (=210W).

• 

  plants update more earth and more underpots

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  amaryllis seedlings update

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  amaryllis and orchids update

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  plants view from top

2021-10

Additional power improvements

There were two power bottlenecks that became obvious on the wiring change:

• There were two relays in parallel (for the 10A current) switching on the DC side. The wiring to them was a part of the bottleneck so I moved them over to the AC side and they completely connect/disconnect the PSU. Now a single one is enough, as they are rated 30A: and at 220vAC it is switching 1-2A, ample headroom.
• The direct connections from the PSU to the LEDs now carry more current and therefore heat up noticeably (30°C everywhere). I changed most PSU→LEDs wires out for thicker 4mm² speakerwires (nothing else available was ≥4mm²), for a majority of the distance (about 1m in the longest case) and split up the shorter wires at the ends to not be longer than 10cm, and to generally not carry more current than for three 2m strips at a time.

Current diagram:

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  electronics relay wiring and mounting

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  wiring upgrade power supply and thick cables

Seeds

To clean up seed reserves (for fear of reaching expiration dates). Seeded all of this:

• green kale (plants entire 06)
• spinach (plants entire 05)
• miscellaneous/rare seeds: passiflora edulis, passiflora coerulea, strelitzia reaginae and Violette Glocke (plants entire 06)
• basil (plants entire 02)

plants side perspective

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  plants entire 01

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  plants entire 02

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  plants entire 03

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  plants entire 04

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  plants entire 05

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  plants entire 06

2021-10-16

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  plants basil seedlings

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  plants seedlings green cabbage, miscellaneous leftovers and spinach

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  dionea muscipula

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  pinguicula weser bloom

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  small orchid separated while blooming

Internal resistance of LED strips

Because of the recent power increase, and therefore more brightness, one weak point became noitceable: the internal resistance of the strips themselves accross 2m. They heat up considerably, though not dangerously, and are dimmer at the not-connected end. To remedy this, simply replacing, or instead shoring out the strips with thicker conductors than they have internally should lower the total resistance and allow cooler and brighter functionning. Furthermore, adding a second power connection accross a 2m strip would be most optimal at the 2/3 mark from the connected end, meaning any power travels 1/3 of 2m for the farthest, a 3x increase from the previous 2m farthest with adding only one more connection along the length. The 4mm² cables were used for these connections, necessitating a 16mm² domino at the power supply to connect everything.

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  electronics update, some tidying

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  electronics update, some tidying 02

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  electronics update, some tidying 03 domino distributor

2021-11

Bought two 50x16cm rectangular underpots to fill the 15cm remaining gap. There are now carnivorous plants in the forward one, the backward one is empty for now.

2022

2022-01

A few changes since 2021-11, they are:

UV lights experiment

Bought 5x 365nm and 5x 380nm leds, they are mounted on coolers with fans and are a bit dim so quite near to the plants.

Added morning lights

Added some, 10W total, dimming lights for a more soothing sunrise experience than an instantaneous (or about 0.2s) turning on: a 10min slow dim up of some little led lights, and only after that do the main lights turn on. This is not for the plants but for my comfort, see a picture in #2022-03.

Plant updates

• Both amaryllis overwintered in the cold and dark, though not freezing.
• Strelitzia reaginae is the only plant that sprouted from the rare and date-expired remaining seeds, and even there only one plant of 4-5 seeds. The Violette Glocke also sprouted but it was before its expiration date.
• White rescued orchid was successfully fertilized and is forming a fruit.

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  dionea muscipula wintering

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  lights ultraviolet experiment

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  salad, orchids, rescued orchid and rescued mint

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  blooming rescued orchid

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  amaryllis emerging from winter

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  strelitzia reginae

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  amaryllis second flower spike

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  orchid watering

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  pinguicula weser feeds on little insects

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  basil

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  cephalotus follicularis

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  orchid successfully fertilized

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  total view

added dimming lights to relay, requiring arduino control

Fertilizing

Probably started to regularly fertilize some plants, to compensate that they are in pots and to boost yields. The fertilizer is an aeroponic tomato mix of several mineral powders/salts which are dissolved in warm water.

plants total view

2022-02

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  Violette Glocke (Cobaea scandens)

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  amaryllis with ten leaves

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  mint cuttings make roots

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  amaryllis 2021 seedlings update

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  green kale

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  amaryllis first spike flowering

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  electrical wiring update, added secondary power supply

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  orchid fruit

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  amaryllis second spike flowering

Amaryllis leaf-growing season

The mystery amaryllis did make leaves this season but it does not make a flower spike. Brought in a new amaryllis, a white one. It has finished flowering but has weakened: it had little water and sun and bloomed two spikes from hormones from the store. The spikes I cut, and it has four green leaves.

Plagues

The mint brought from France seems to have some kind of fungus parasite. To stop it proliferating, I take cuttings of not infected parts and plant those once they have roots.

2022-03

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  violet orchid

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  dimmable leds

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  red-yellow orchid getting ready to flower again

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  small still attached white orchid flowering, it gets sugar from the mother plant

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  plants view update

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  consoude plants

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  mint cuttings update and lettuce seeded

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  avocado update and repotting

Strelitzia repotting

Repotted the strelitzia because it seems to have a carrot-like central root and was reaching the bottom of its current pot. It now is in a square green high pot.

New plants

Bought the violet orchid. Seeded lettuce to test whether this lettuce too wil be as floppy and acid as the previous one. In the worst case it is to use up the seeds.

2022-04

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  kale flowering

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  topview, amaryllis unexpected new leaves (totaling 12)

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  cephalotus placement and orchids and amaryllis below

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  plants view

Lettuce problems

The lettuce is doing the same thing as the previous one, I think now that it is beacuse of lighting: there is not enough of it for lettuce. As a little surprise, the red amaryllis is making two new leaves after having bloomed.

Plants misc

On the other hand, the white amaryllis seems to support the lighting but it dried one leaf off. The infested basil did not survive the outside, now putting the pots inside to at least try, and check they do not contain any greenflies. Will probably start over with new basil plants.

2022-05

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  Violette Glocke grows outside bed frame

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  phone autophoto placing

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  miltoniopsis orchid

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  mint tea

Schedule change

Switched illumination settings to flip the year: instead of the longest day on 21jun and shortest on 21dec, now the shortest day is jun21 (06:20-18:30) and the longest will be 21dec (06:20-21:00). This is to heat less in summer and to light more in winter (better mood for me). Because of heat from the lighting among others, I bought an air conditionning unit to cool down during the hottest days. This should also help the sensitive plants like miltoniopsis.

2022-06

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  kale

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  gardenbed overview

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  violette glocke

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  basil seedlings

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  basil seedlings

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  strelitzia reginae 4th new leaf

Seeded a basil "big-leafed" variety, now to see that it doesn't get infested with greenflies.

Put one pot of lettuce outside on the kitchen west window. It is liking it and takes on a more lettuce-like shape and is stronger, the leaves taste less acid and sweeter too.

New plants

Definite logkeeping start on 2022-06-23. Planted Apfelminze (probably Mentha suaveolens) from Omate, and also Melissa (probably Melissa officinalis). The lettuce ouside dried out, bringing it inside for now, but one basil that survived the cold april and may nights is still outside and flowering, it might not have any greenflies anymore.

2022-07

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  strelitzia reginae with new 5th leaf starting

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  pinguicula flower

PSU swap out

Bought new 400w PSU after the 5+years old one failed silently. Also wired a 3.3V and a 5V rail of the new PSU for the small UV leds (3.3V) and charging the photo-phone (5V).

Miltoniopsis

The miltoniopsis suffered a bit from the heat I think (upwards of 28°C some days with night lows rarely below 20°C) and stopped flowering, though it already had the flowers open for its typical period.

Misc Plants

Brought the flowering basil inside as it seemed to not have any greenflies and was being eaten up by snails.

The big white orchid's fruit finally matured and burst. For now, I collected the dust-like seeds but I am not too interested in setting up an entire orchid growing facility, as it seems to be a quite labour intensive process to seed those.

2022-08

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  strelitzia reginae 5 leaves

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  violette glocke flower

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  pinguicula flowers

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  mint growing near to lights

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  new light mounting system 1

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  new light mounting system 2

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  new light mounting system 3

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  new light mounting system 4

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  final led strip arrangement 1

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  final led strip arrangement 2

Electronics controller changes

Changed some electronics because planning on adding more old-phones-as-cameras. Currently still only using one phone but the system will now easily work with multiple phones. Changed:

• Added a rasbperry pi (version 2) near the PSUs
• Replaced arduino by the raspberry pi. Because the raspberry pi and the phone charging were connected to the same 5v line as the arduino, it would sometimes not have enough power and reboot. That meant it thought it was morning and would take 10min to turn the main lights on again.
• Therefore all automated functions are run on the raspberry pi: turning main lights on/off, morning lights fade up, and calculating sunshine time (and therefore time synchronization).
• Because the rasbperry pi 2 does not have wifi, it has an external usb3 wifi antenna and corresponding drivers. It keeps wifi off most of the time, only turning it on once a day for uploading pictures. (On a reboot it will not turn wifi off, only the next day at 07:00 once the upload finishes). To schedule maintenance login, it checks that rigel:/mnt/18a/plants/keeponline does not exist and only then turns wifi off. if it exists, it keeps wifi on and a login will be subsequently possible.

Electronics power rewiring

Introduce multistrips

Changed the mounting strategy for individual strips making maintenance easier because they are detachable: they just slide in with screws as hooks, no screwing in is needed. It is now possible to attach/detach a multistrip easily: slide the set in a free space and then connect the wiring. No need to access from below, no need to screw in (just slide in), and all soldering can be done before connecting.

Wiring clean up

The wiring had some clean-up, and was extended all the way to the other end of the bed: the 1m modular multistrips have power connections on both ends, for avoiding too high voltage drops accross 1m length (just like power injection at the 2/3 mark of 2m strips to avoid dimmer ends of strips than their start).

Basil seeds

The basil seedlings are progressing and seeming healthy.

Light experiment

Doing a little experiment with two pots of mint, putting them up higher nearer to the lights. This is to see how they grow with more intense light and if it makes sense to split up some part of the gardenbed to be two-storied, as in make an about 30cm-high table and put plant trays on it. From below, it would have lights and more plant trays on the floor: two abut 30cm-high stories instead of one 60cm (with lights that far away, the plants are losing some light). The mint plants seem to be doing quite well and I am planning forward.

Orchids

Most orchids have started to make new leaves or are continuing to grow new ones: the violet one, the yellow-bordeaux one, the two little white ones and also the big white one. The mother white one which still has a plantling attached also seems to do something at its stem, either a new plantling or just a new root or flower spike. Do they like the heat this much? It may also be because they were watered from below and left in 2cm deep water twice for more than a week each time.

White amaryllis

The white amaryllis has dried all its leaves. I will unpot it and start its hibernation now, unfortunately in the fridge for its start; before something starts to rot and it definitely dies. The bulb is still stiff and with an earlier winter (starting now) it could make new leaves by october-november.

Misc plants

About amaryllises, planning on repotting all the 2021 seedlings (some are 30cm high already) in one long rectangular pot and try to make a blooming cascade when they mature in a few years, by starting (potting in/pulling out of hibernation) every plant offset, by a week for example.

The parsnip grew well, but it had some insects, maybe some greenflies. To stop them I cut away everything green and only left its root stem sticking out the ground. That has started to make half a dozen green buds and leaves now, and does not have any parasites.

New oncidium

Bought a healthy Oncidium, also called Cambria, its flowers were bordeau, on discount because it had finished blooming. It it quite similar to the Miltoniopsis, also in growing conditions.

2022-09

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  cephalotus follicularis

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  total view with new shelf mount in the back

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  sarracenia

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  basil seedlings on the shelf

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  amaryllis repotting

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  enitre view right

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  enitre view left

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  hoya carnosa, or porcelainflower; just potted in

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  vanilla planifolia

Electonics updates

Made multistrips of the remaining previous leds: some misc strips and the long-waiting UV led strips. They are now installed and wired up.

Measured the power use:

• AC: (235±0.5)V ac, (2.26±0.02)A ac ⇒ (531±6)W
• PSU_2(450w): (12.15±0.01)V 30.7±0.5)A ⇒ (373±6)W
• PSU_1(350w): (11.41±0.01)V (10.7±0.4)A ⇒ (122±5)W

for a total of (495±11)W and power efficiency in [0.901, 0.964]. Note that the two PSUs are not exactly connected on their 12V DC side, they connect to different sets of leds and any path from one to the other passes through a led strip: most strips have connections on both ends to prevent a too high voltage drop over 1m. When the inputs are shorted, I think PSU_2 takes over to 100% output and PSU_1 has no too much to do. PSU_2 is sensitive to its load and at 100% it ramps up its ventilation fan, which is too noisy and that is why I rewired it like that.

New space for plants

Made a table structure and now there is more space, for 24 standard pots in two x12 trays. The lights below the table are not yet mounted so there are no plants there.

Amaryllis replanting

Replanted the amaryllis plants (seeded 2021) from 4 standard pots into a rectangular 17x60cm and four standard pots. The biggest bulbs are already 6-8cm diameter, there are about 10 that are >5cm and 25 in total, with only about 5 smaller than 2cm. When they will be mature for flowering, I will need to find wider rectangle pots, something like 60x30cm, thrice with that many bulbs. At this point it would be the same as square pots, 30x30cm times 6.

Amaryllises

The not-yet-flowered amaryllis has made new leaves while drying out its older leaves. It also had some burns from lights. Because of that I think its winter will be planned November22-March23.

The big bordeau amaryllis is also drooping its leaves, multiple have folded along their length but they are not drying out for now. I am thinking of overwintering it longer this year, maybe 01october22-01january23.

New Sarracenia

Bought a sarracenia, to try out and also to tackle the high amount of flies in the apartment.

New strawberries

Brought a few strawberry plants from france. I had to mow the patch of strawberries there because it was full of weeds. But after two weeks, because the roots had stayed, strawberry leaves started coming up again. I took a few of the plants here and after careful washing potted them in, over a total of 9 standard pots. When the table will have lights from below, they sould go there I think.

Oncidium and miltoniopsis

The Oncidium and Miltoniopsis are now watered with filtered water and the Miltoniopsis had some (looking like salt) spots, which are not on new leaves anymore.

Misc plants

Also stood up the biggest kale plants to help them grow straight and up, and allow more airflow to ventilate and reduce the fungus there. Did a somewhat big cutting of mint to make it grow differently under the nearer light, without making too much of a tangle and grow more leaves and less stems than before.

New vanilla orchid

Bought a big vanilla orchid (the usual comestible vanilla planifolia) on 26 Sept, and counted its leaves and the stem layout:

1:(4-5):7{A,B,C,D}

A7:(8-9A):(25.26A):29{X}:(41-42A):44

B7:(11-12B):(24-25B):39{X}:(39-40B):(50-51B):54

C7:(13C):13:X

D7:(9-10D):(21-22D):(41-42D):47

Syntax explanation: a number always means node count, always from the roots. Letters mean different stems except for X where a stem ends. Curly braces after a number mean a multiplication of stems at that node, with the list of new stems in the curly braces: 7{A,B,C,D} means 4 new stems called A, B, C, and D start at node 7. Then each line is about a stem.

Colon-separated elements describe features along the concerned stem, with :X denoting the end of a stem, :([num]-[num+1][etter]): means a tagged internode, so a tag attached to the piece of stem between leaves at nodes [num] and [num+1]. An element like 39{X} means a new stem starts at node 39 but also directly ends there: probably where a cutting was previously taken.

2022-10

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  big bordeaux amaryllis unpotted and roots washed

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  white orchid new leaves from new basal growth

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  sarracenia, with new pitchers growing

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  vanilla new growing spike

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  basil after first harvest

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  installed new lights under table

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  installed new lights under table, view from below

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  ficus bonsai air roots

Amaryllis hibernation

Put the big amaryllis to hibernation, and unpotted it this year because it had stayed in the pot the previous winter. Also got the white amaryllis out of the fridge and put it in the dark with the big one.

Vanilla paused

The vanilla orchid had a few parasites (greenflies) on the ends of its stems and I cleaned them away with vinegar. Now the vanilla did not like this at all and the ends are now brown. I am thinking that new growths will start somewhere below and it will take some time. It took about three weeks but among all 4 stem ends, they all stopped growing from the vinegar and restarted on a few leaf nodes lower. There are now 4 growing stem ends.

New red lights

The new leds arrived, I soldered and mounted them together on the table.

Table new strawberries

From the new space, almost half is laready taken up by strawberries. This also airs up the rest of the trays, most notably the orchids and the kale. Some seedlings are planned in the remaining empty space.

2022-11

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  vanilla new spike growing with drop: high sap pressure

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  strawberry flowering

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  vanilla air roots

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  temporary electronics: current limit with thick white, 7m, 2x2.5mm^2 wire

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  resoldering to "60V" and voltage-boost power converters

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  bordeaux orchid new massive leaf

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  miltoniopsis new leaf

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  before-220V relay and controllers newly mounted in box

Major electronics rewiring to 60V

Motivation

The previous layout ov 12V was getting a little out of hand, and with the multistrip setup the resoldering from 12V x5 in parallel to 60V in series should be easier and much more modular than doing it on the entire circuit at once. Also, adding dimmability should be a big upgrade for the PSU's behaviour: it should no longer be at 100% load and the fan could be silent without needing a modification (which breaks the warranty sticker).

Also, the just-enough 4mm² wires at 12V should be amply enough at 60V and make about 5x less heat losses. Some wires that move more than 5A at 12V are currently warm at the touch, this would not be the case at 60V.

Process

Needed to resolder LEDs in series by strips of 5: for a theoretical 60V. Now it's not running at 60V but just 45-50V (thanks to the dimmer!). This is enough light for the plants and, exactly because it is dimmable, it allows for the PSU to not serve as the current limiter (and being used at 100% load). Rather, the LEDs will limit their power consumption when limited by the lower voltage (45V/5=10V instead of previously the PSU's 12.15V) and so the whole system puts less stress on the PSU.

Remaining 12V capacity

On the other hand, the UV leds specifically have a higher voltage threshold for minimal/normal brightnesses, and there are only 2 of them, for about 50W it does not warrant another separate "~55V" circuit: They will stay on one remaining 12V wire.

The fans at the other end of the bed need 12v too.

B long wire

The PSU does not want to turn on with everything connected, only A+12v load or only B+12v seems to work but not all A+B+12v. After some experimenting I found that an additional 1m length of 12V wire, at 4mm², between 'PSU 12V 650w' and 'B' would somehow solve the problem. It may have to do with constructive and destructive interference backfeeding from one voltage converter to the other, as they are connected in parallel over their input. The 1m length seems to add enough stray capacitance, inductance or resistance to lower the effect so that the PSU is not overwhelmed. This length is not shown on the diagram.

Multistrip layout

Multistrip name legend

W	white
B	red+blue in either 3red:1blue or 5red:1blue ratio
R	pure red
U	ultraviolet
number	amount of rows of leds and NOT the amount of strips (e.g. 5 for the 10W)

LED multistrip layout and circuitry

Bed feet end		Bed head end		Under Table (below head end)
10W	A	5R	A	5B	B
5B	A	5R	A	5R	B
5U	(A)off	5B	A
		5U	12v	5B	B
10W	A	3W	12v	5R	B
3W	12v	10W	B	10W	B

Multstrip name and electric connections are given:

• A means 12v x 5 in series = "60V" (variable, 46V now) connection to DC-DC step-up voltage converter A,
• B also "60V" (variable, 46V now) for converter B.
• 12v means direct wiring to PSU 12v without any converters.

Electronics clean-up

Mounted all the controller electronics in a plastic box, more compact and less open. This is now much cleaner but I need a ventilation fan before closing the box with its lid.

Mystery amaryllis

On 24Nov, transplanted mystery amaryllis out of pot and rinced its roots: put it into wintering mode and laid it in the cold and dark.

Vanilla resumed and others

The vanilla is growing with vigour, on all 4 spike ends. Most orchids are in leaf-growing season, even the miltoniopsis and oncidium are showing they are well this way.

2022-12

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  all electronics now secured and stable

• 

  cephalotus multiplied

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  new arriving pinguiculas, droseras, nepenthes

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  dendrobium phalaenopsis

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  hoya carnosa new growth

Electonics clean up

Finally mounted the electronics onto a piece of wood instead of having them hanging around. This happened after some inspiration of mounting the before-220v contoller part into its plastic box, all nice and tidy. It still remains to close, for that I still need an air circualtion fan and to shorten some wires to optimal length.

Cephalotus

Repotted the cephalotus, and since it was growing quite big and was risky to pull out the glass hole of its container, it is now multiplied, and only part of it is back in the glass container. The other bits and pieces are now in a more standard pot, I hope they don't suffer from not humid enough air and take root. Though the cephalotus famously grows slowly, taking root should take at least four months.

Plagues

The basil and mint have been having some problems with fruitflies, the basil is doing quite poorly and dying out. The mint had been battling some kind of fungus but keeping on top. On 04Dec I trimmed most of it down and set the leaves to dry; then I added more earth in the pots from the top. This is to add new minerals and help decompose biological remains on top of the soil and maybe aspyxiate some of the fruitflies. The basil on the other hand has died out surprisingly fast, now only three pots remain.

Pinguiculas

I put two pinguiculas next to those pots to attract the fruitflies more and am now resounding to more methods: there is now a sticky flytrap between the pots. I hope that will help the basil, and for the mint: it should grow through the new layer of soil in a few weeks, maybe even just one.

Naming scheme for underpot trays

shorthand	size	where
1A	37*95cm	Leftmost 1 on the groud
2A	37*95cm	From left 2nd on the ground
3A	37*95cm	From left 3rd on the ground
4A	37*95cm	From right 2nd on the ground (below table)
5A	37*95cm	From right 1st on the ground (below table)
1B	37*95cm	From right 1st on table (over 5A)
2B	37*95cm	From right 2nd on table (over 4A)
1C	2x round	Pots between 3A and 4A
1D	round	Front on table to the right of 2B
2D	50*17cm	Back on table to the right of 2B
1G	60*17cm	perpendicular in front of 1, 2 and 3A

New carnivorous arrivals

In this new naming scheme, added tray on 2D, which is full of 5 carnivorous plants: drosera binata, drosera alicae, pinguicula moranensis, pinguicula esseriana, pinguicula weser, pinguicula anna, and one nepenthes hookeriana.

New dendrobium phalaenopsis

In the now orchid-and-strelitzia tray 3A added dendrobium phalaenopsis, bordeaux but finished blooming in november. To clarify, tray 1G is the one full of amaryllis seeds from 2021.

Only one strawberry left

On 18Dec tidied up some pots and reorganized layout. I think the strawberries mostly died from a soil issue, but am not sure. To prevent further problems, I plan on not letting the soil die out and have started watering it. This means empty pots are not stacked anymore: every pot has water at its bottom after watering. Tray 5A has 12 only-soil pots and we'll see how it goes. There are a few empty pots (without soil even) in 4A. There are other soil-only pots in 1B, 2B, and 1A. All these soil-only pots come from dead plants that I removed most roots from. After some mixing soil between the drier and wetter pots, I just placed them around where plants were generously spaced, to not force all plants to be too dense.

Amaryllis preparations

To prepare for the amaryllis returns (there will be three big pots!) in the start of 2023, I moved the mostly empty and dry blue pots from 4A to 2A and moved the small phaleanospis there to 4A. These blue pots serve as an experiment in composting for now: I pot most of the dead roots and leaves there with the dry earth and mixed that a little. Planning on watering this a bit, it could decompose some. In any case, this stuff will partly stay there for the amaryllis to use. I might move it all for only the biggest one, just so that it eats it up and if it weakens from that, it should be fine just because of how massive that bulb is anyway.

Hoya carnosa

After cutting off the dried up end spike of the carnosa, it seemed to realize that it was growing nowhere and happily started two new growths.

2023

2023-01

• 

  amaryllis x3 before potting in

• 

  amaryllis and tulips potted in

• 

  hoya carnosa new stem growth

• 

  repotted cephalotus

• 

  amaryllis growing

• 

  PSU changed orientation

• 

  control relays for dimmming

• 

  new pilea

• 

  small white orchid blooming

• 

  strelitzia reginae new leaf

Amaryllis and tulips

In parallel to potting the amaryllis in, I received some tulip bulbs in December and potted them in at the same time. The tulips also have some of the slightly decomposed roots and various dead bits because there was quite a big volume to put just in the amaryllis' pots. Note that one amaryllis (the white flowering one) has dechlorophylled leaves: it had started growing them during its stay in the cellar while being near the window, but then I covered them up to not confuse it (I had started its hibernation in september in the fridge, and the temperature going from 4°C to 10°C in november when it went to the cellar triggered the leaf growth).

Misc

Also, the pinguiculas are blooming and the new ones are already growing and showing healthy.

Electronics capcacity improvement

2023-01-20 measurement

	V	A	W	efficiency
before DC-DCup A	12.05±0.01	10.53±0.2	126.9±3
before DC-DCup B	11.78±0.01	10.41±0.2	122.6±3
after DC-DCup A	46.3±0.1	2.71±0.2	125.5±10	[0.889,1.00]
after DC-DCup B	46.3±0.1	2.46±0.2	113.9±10	[0.827,1.00]
12v line (UV+3W+DCDCdown-> 4V fans)	12.15±0.01	9.28±0.2	112.8±3
total 12v			362.3±9

Slightly turned up the "60V" output to heighten brightness.

Motivation

This is now beyond the PSU's overcurrent protection and it therefore trips if all the leds are turned on at once. To mitigate this, the Raspberry pi now follows a "bootup sequence" to progressively turn on LEDs in the morning:

Transformer amp limiting

The voltage transformers have multiple setting variable resistors (to be set with a screwdriver), the voltage one being currently used. But they also have a current (amp) ceiling variable resistor, which I used to implement the power-throttling: The variable resistor is set higher than the actual current consumption, but it has the two poles connected to relays with resistors. When the relay engages, the resistor is in parallel to the variable resistor and therfore lowering the current ceiling to a "trottled" state; and when the relay is disengaged, normal "full-power" operation resumes.

The setup is represented here as the "relays" box where two additional resistors are switched into the DC-DC boost converters A and B's amp limiters (on the rectangles from below at an angle).

2023-02

• 

  big red amaryllis two stalks

• 

  pinguiculas, droseras and nepenthes

• 

  red-white amaryllis stem

• 

  red-white amaryllis blooms

• 

  red-white amaryllis three flowers

• 

  big red amaryllis flower before opening

• 

  big red amaryllis first flower

• 

  big red amaryllis six flowers on first stalk

• 

  bordeaux phalaenopsis blooms

• 

  big red amaryllis second stalk, again six flowers

• 

  hoya carnose new stem growths

• 

  big white phalaenopsis first bloom

Electronics troubles

After a little surprise when half of the light went out, I found one disconnected wire, which was the ultimate cause. But that wire was badly oxidized and still warm, with the plastic housing partly molten. It was a bad domino connection that, when carrying >15A would resistively heat up and that would thermally conduct into the copper. To prevent similar problems in the future, I rewired the high current circuits to have a minimal amount of dominoes and screw connections, replacing all but the two ends with soldered connections. One end goes to the PSU, which I am unwilling to open and solder onto the rails for warranty concerns; and the other end is on the voltage boost converters, where the connector is rated for 25A but is ony used at 15A so it should hold for now, I simply check regurlary that it is not hot, only warm, to the touch. Maybe a thermal fuse could be used here.

2023-03

• 

  big white phalaenopsis blooms

• 

  speckled violet small phalaenopsis blooms

• 

  cephalotus follicularis, big white phalaenopsis, mystery amaryllis two stalks and vanilla in the back

• 

  mystery amaryllis: a double-flower red

• 

  small salad harvest

• 

  orange speckled phalaenopsis first few flowers

• 

  double-red amaryllis first stalk with three flowers

Coffee grounds and eggshells ?

I started an experiment on the long run, regarding soil composition. Used coffee grounds and eggshells contain nutrients that I usually thow into the compost, but I wanted to try using them in the gardenbed. For now, it's just collecting the materials and testing things out. The coffee grounds I simply put in a container and then mix a little into the soil when repotting. For the eggshells, I dry them in the oven at >200C and then make a powder of them with a mixer.

2023-04

PSU troubles

Temporarily changed PSU to other model, of 750W. This is because the 650W one failed and the warranty return took some time during which I would prefer the plants to have lighting, so I bought a 750W for backup.

Also because of that, bootup timings are now longer (10s) to be gentler on the PSU in the long run.

• 

  pinguicula has a lot to eat

• 

  cephalotus trap macro shot

• 

  strelitzia reginae repotted for deeper roots

• 

  drosera, pinguiculas

Pilea wrinkles

I moved the pilea from the tabletop to tray 1A where the light is farther away because it was growing too strongly. Instead of having bombing leaves, I would prefer it to have its, admittedly characteristic, flat leaves.

Misc

Seeded some old seeds of aromatic herbs and some more recent basil, in 15 pots on trays 4A mostly and 5A.

2023-05

• 

  gardenbed front right tabletop view

• 

  gardenbed front right below table view

• 

  gardenbed front left view

• 

  table lights rewiring, double-domino solution

• 

  repotted droseras, pinguiculas and nepenthes

• 

  vanilla before

• 

  vanilla after untangling

• 

  vanilla in new space, on new support structure

• 

  orange speckled phalaenopsis blooms

The table

It got a little remake: I got it out to replace the screws holding it together with longer ones: that helped a lot to stabilize any previous wobbling. Before it would be sensitive to almost any push and move around a lot when the trays on it were manipulated (though the load-bearing capabilities were not compomised because of which blocks of wood rest on the others). Now it is much sturdier and sliding a tray full of pots onto it is much less terryfying.

Wiring upgrades

On that occasion, I redid the wiring for under the table as well, to send one thick 4mm² wire diagonally across to deliver the current more homogeneously (well it's 4mm² on maybe 1-1.5A,45V so the effect is mostly placebo, especially since I didn't mesaure).

Orchid dryness

The orchids usually run dry quite fast and I used up all sphagnum moss recently for the carnivorous plants repottings. Therefore I used some of the coffee grounds on top of their usual soil chips, to see if that could capture more moisture. The coffee grounds, when stored, start to lump up because some fungus likes to eat them. To prevent this, the container is open and equipped with a small computer fan that blows air on the grounds and keeps them dry enough to discourage fungal activities.

2023-06

• 

  drosera binata new leaves

2023-07

• 

  oncidium flower

• 

  bordeaux phalaenopsis

The Oncidium

It started blooming, but it only managed one flower before drying the stalk off, it may need more attention regarding watering as it regularly displays wrinkled leaves, which are a sign of not enough or irregular watering.

2023-08

• 

  new light multistrips

• 

  multistrips layout right side

• 

  multistrips layout left side

New lights

Added 4 new 10W multstrips, they are much brighter than the old 10W, because they use more LED power per length, not inherently different LED chips, though the old have 5050 and the new 2835 chips. One 10W still needs to be installed on the underside of the table.

2023-09

• 

  dendrobium phalaenopsis grows a stalk

• 

  lights from below

• 

  dendrobium phalaenopsis budding

• 

  hoya carnosa

The 4 old 10W mutlistrips

They are degraded and have been dimming over time, to make them useful until the end, some wiring changes were made...

Motivation

They seem to be ageing, though most damage comes from one power supply changeover where they were driven at 12.10V per strip, compared to the usual 9-10V; and they had overheated and shut down in just 10 minutes: only 95% diodes survived. To squeeze some more light out of them (as dim as they are now, they could last 10 years but they are probably much less lifetime-total efficient that way), let's just drive them at a higher voltage.

Solution

This requires putting them on a new third "~60V" circuit, called C which runs at about 44V. This number is constrained from above by the PSU's overcurrent (A < max_Amp) and over-current-sharp-rise (dA/dt < max_dAmp_dt) protections, and from below by the low brightness. New wires were run and the mount for the A and B step-up transformers already had a third space, it was just a matter of screwing things in. The new transformer does not yet have the over-amperage limiter for when the PSU is turend on from a cold state, I am just hoping the A and B amp limiters will be enough.

Remove B long wire?

Wire length not shown on the diagrams, but it seems the additional 12V 1m wire length before the B transformer was unnecessary, as the C transformer is, like A, connected to the PSU over just 20cm of wire and it all works fine. I am planning on shortening B's 1m of 12V wire after some testing. That 1m of additional wire was introduced (2022-11) before the amp limiters (2023-01), and the amp limiters may have made the 1m wire redundant in the while. This removal would be advantageous for cable management, but also for efficieny: over 120cm vs 20cm of wire, more resistance is encountered on the 120cm. Now it is 4mm², but at 12V; the heat loss prevented should still be nonzero.

Multistrip layout 2023-09

Bed feet end		Bed head end		Under Table (below head end)
(front)
10W	(new) A	5R	A	10W	C
10W	C	10W	(new) A	5R	B
5B	A	5B	A	5B	B
5U	12v	5R	A
10W	(new) A	5U	12v	5R	B
10W	A	3W	12v	5B	B
3W	12v	10W	C	10W	(new) B
(back)

Vanilla cutoff

The Vanilla had a nick on one stem connection, exactly where there was a Y. It was probably from some manipulation while untangling it, and I just left it hoping it would be fine. As it turns out, it wasn't fine because the entire stem after that point had drooping leaves, was not growing on the end and had a shriveled stem.

The stem was effectively cut off and was not getting nutrients from the soil. After untangling it, it spent a week in a bucket with 10cm of water, to revigorate it. Now it has its own pot and the stem loops thrice through the pot, this should maximize root growth instead of just putting one end in the pot. Furthermore, the stem is about 150cm long so it's taking up less space rolled up.

Repottings

A few plants were thriving for a long time and had multiplication repottings overdue. Those are:

• Pinguicula Weser in 1B, always thriving but let's allow it to thrive: more pinguiculas means less fruitfiles when their season ultimately comes
• Pinguicula Guatemala in 1B, repotted from the small original pot to the two sides of a standard pot
• Pinguicula Anna in 1B, to two pots
• Nepenthes in 1B, a surprise since it's growing slowly but it is clearly thriving
• Sarracenia from 1C to 1C+1B, it was already cramped in its original pot. The offshoot in a pot with the nepenthes offshoot: try a mixed-species pot
• Pilea from 1A to 2 pots in 1A and 2 pots in 4A, clearly cramped in its original pot. Two offshoots in addition to the mother plant. Also cut off a few leaves just to try cuttings

Seeded

Quite a few pots were still available and with the new 10W lights, everywhere has a high light intensity, also with not-red. Concerned:

• Basil 4 pots in 4A front, seeds from summer of 2022 from just one plant and two flower stalks
• Celery giant red 6 pots in 1A back and 6 pots in 4A back, seeds may have low sprouting because of age

2023-10

• 

  dendrobium phalaenopsis flowers

• 

  vanilla cutting growth

Vanilla cuttings

In addition to the mother plant, there are now two vanilla cuttings. The latest one which had been in bad shape has recovered and resumed growing.

2023-11

• 

  amaryllis prepare for winter

• 

  pinguiculas orange:guatemala, light purple:weser and magenta:anna flowers

• 

  hoya carnosa new support

Seedlings and cuttings

The basil seeds sprouted and are happily growing, but nothing else did (those were old seeds). So I repotted some of the basil plants and they now use up 10 pots in tray 4A, from previously 4. The remaining 2 pots in 4A are the pilea and its cuttings, most of which have wilted (maybe the plant needs the centre bit for propagating and can't from just a leaf).

2023-12

Humidifier for vanilla

I'm thinking of building an automated humidifier system for the vanilla orchid. Currently the system is manual, just a sprayer with distilled water. But because of that I don't actually use it often... I already have almost all the parts for an ultrasonic humidifier-based setup:

• ultrasonic humidifier (24V 1A)
• fan for moving the mist
• servo for orienting the fan [missing] (overengineering?)
• water reservoir: just a plastic box where the humidifier sits in
• relay to switch humidifier on/off programatically

What remains to be done is build the thing, place it in the back somewhere near the vanilla, and connect it to the raspberry Pi.

Electronics tidying

The pre-PSU control circuit is quite complicated, its core part is the 220v relay powering the PSU on. Currently, this is all mounted in a plastic box but it doesn't close. Before adding the humidifier to that mess, some organizing is needed, I'm thinking of a multi-layer "open-air" setup, where components are mounted on wood plaques which then screw on the main mount. Then multiple plaques can be mounted ontop of eachother, with fans blowing cooling air in from the sides.

Also, in the post-PSU part, the boost converter A's amp throttling control came loose and the wire isn't making contact anymore. Surprisingly, the PSU seems "worn in" enough to still start up (with only B being throttled). And C does not have a throttle yet as well... Next time it's unscrewed: solder on connectors and new wires. Add connectors so that the trottle connections can also be unplugged, this was probably why A's wire disconnected in the first place.

2024

2024-06

Lighting upgrade to colder temperatures

A mid-term project to switch out some of the warmest lights at 2700K to 6000K to balance out the remaining 2700K strips. This should pull the average to about 4000K, plants grow differently under colder white light

2024-07

Multistrip layout 2024-07

Bed feet end		Bed head end		Under Table (below head end)
(front)
5C6W10	(replaced) A	5RR8	A	10WW15(old)	C
10WW15(old)	C	5C6W10	(replaced) A	5RR8	B
5BR10	A	5BR10	A	5BR10	B
5U10	12v	5RR8	A
5C6W10	(replaced) A	5U10	12v	5C6W10	(replaced) B
10WW15(old)	A	3W	12v	5BR10	B
3W	12v	10WW15(old)	C	10WW15(new)	B
(back)

With a little change in the codes: 10W becomes 10WW15 for denoting "10" rows of LEDs, "WW"= warm white", with "15"mm strip width. Similarly, 5B -> 5BR10 "blue red 10mm wide", 5R -> 5RR8 "red_red 8mm wide".

Introduced new strips 5C6W10, which replaced three 10WW15(new) and one 5RR8. They are 5 rows of LEDs, cold 6000K white "C6W", and 10mm wide per strip.

Also added the distinction 10WW15(new) vs 10WW15(old), because the old strips are partly burned out and were already running on the separate C circuit to prolong their useful life without needing to dim everything.