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  • Author Author: jduchniewicz
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Envidrawer 1 - Introduction, the plan and materials preparation

jduchniewicz

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#2 - Materials and casing assemblyOur journey with selecting proper materials, cutting and assembling the drawer and its casing!
#3 - Modelling, cutting, planting!The title says it all: this part describes some modelling we did before cutting some holes in the drawer and finally planted some vegetables!
#4 - Plants, harvests, and fertilisersFirst harvest, problems with plants and used fertilisers. All that went off-script for our plants in the artificial environment.
#5 - Piping and pumping - water and liquid fertiliser delivery systemDesign and development of water supply system.
#6 - Mix of fixesFinal touches to water supply system and small redesigns/fixes.
#7 - Ride the lightning - Wiring diagram, pinout and components discussionDiagram of the circuit, pinout for most components, wire choices and their connections
#8 - Pulling the stringsLED and Fan control circuit, overview of BJTs and MOSFETs with a handful of useful general information

#9 - 3D printing

Detailed description of 3D printed components, their presentation and some tips
#10 - Software, architecture and the benefits of good preparationBig explanation of the software and its architecture
#11 - SummaryOur final post before the end of the challenge!

Introduction


This is the first blog post in the series for Envidrawer - your own gardening drawer. In these blogs we would like to update you on our progress with this project, as well as, share some technical tips and difficulties we encountered.
In case you are not familiar with our idea, here it is (in picture):

image

The core concept is: to be able to utilize previously unnecessary space for growing edible plants to sustain humanity in harsh environmental condition.

 

First of all we would like to make this project as automated as possible, so that human intervention is necessary only in some severe cases (pest control or solving issues) - we all know how precious is our time image
In order to do so, we will utilize the Raspberry Pi along with some additional sensors and electronic components that we plan to integrate into the system. We will build the casing for the drawer by ourselves out of wood, and we will utilize 3D printed materials for some small necessities, such as servomotor casings.
This is an indoor project, so we must take into account different environmental conditions - obviously humans have different requirements for humidity and temperature than plants have. In order to alleviate that, we plan to maintain different conditions inside the drawer by means of irrigation system, fans and LEDs, controlled by our MCU.
In case you wanted to see a high-level overview of the system:

image

 

There are of course some challenges we will be facing along the way, as the season in Poland (my current geographical location) is over and plant vegetation is now not a thing - winter is coming. Because of that, we will utilize aforementioned LEDs, irrigation system and we will regulate temperature in order to maintain the best possible environmental conditions for the plants..

Apart from that, we plan to build an actual piece of furniture, which has to be automatized and we are not sure whether we predicted the final weight the servomotors will have to be moving - this may result in human-movable drawer unless we order stronger motors.

 

Summary

 

In the upcoming posts we wish to discuss:
- assembly of the actual casing and planting tips

- discussion of plants and their requirements
- mechanical system overview

- electronic system overview
- UI/UX design

We are impatiently waiting for the arrival of the kit and some other electronics we have ordered in order to make this project even cooler.

Jakub & Szymon & Michał

 

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#2 - Materials and casing assembly
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