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Blog Gr0G - 11 - Building the box (2)
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  • Author Author: amgalbu
  • Date Created: 18 Nov 2020 1:49 PM Date Created
  • Views 446 views
  • Likes 4 likes
  • Comments 1 comment
  • 1meterofpi
  • gr0g
  • 1meter of pi
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Gr0G - 11 - Building the box (2)

amgalbu
amgalbu
18 Nov 2020

Here is a list of the posts in this challenge

Gr0G - 01 - Introduction

Gr0G - 02 - Why aeroponics?

Gr0G - 03 - High-pressure system design

Gr0G - 04 - Mechanical design

Gr0G - 05 - Electrical design

Gr0G - 06 - Building the box

Gr0G - 07 - Playing with the Gertbot

Gr0G - 08 - Installing LEDs

Gr0G - 09 - The control board

Gr0G - 10 - Software design

Gr0G - 11 - Building the box (2)

Gr0G - 12 - Building the high-pressure system

Gr0G - 13 - Building the high-pressure system (2)

Gr0G - 14 - Piping

Gr0G - 15 - Improvements

Gr0G - 16 - Remote UI

Gr0G - 17 - Remote UI (2)

Gr0G - 18 - Conclusions

 

Source code available at https://github.com/ambrogio-galbusera/gr0g, https://github.com/ambrogio-galbusera/gr0g-ble-android and https://github.com/ambrogio-galbusera/gr0g-ble

 

An update about the Gr0G box

Today I installed some components, namely the dehumidifier, the fan, the keypad and the control board

 

The dehumidifier

The dehumidifier is built around a Peltier cell. The concept behind the dehumidifier is very simple: damp air is pulled over the front of a cold heat sink. As the air passes over the cold surface, it condenses

 

image

 

I have a TEC1-12706 Peltier cell in my lab. These universal IDs clearly indicate the size, number of stages, number of couples, and current rating in amps, as seen in the adjacent diagram

image

The vast majority of thermoelectric coolers have an ID printed on the cooled side, but, to stay on the safe side, I connected the cell to the power supply for 30 seconds and, with my finger, I checked where the hot and cold side were

image

I used some heat sink I took off from old PCs.

image

 

The bigger heat sink will be placed on the "hot" side of the cell to dissipate the heat as fast as possible. A Peltier cell creates a temperature gradient between the two faces, so the colder is the hot side, the colder is the cold side

image

The smaller heat sink will be in touch with the "cold" side.

image

I also added an extra fan on the cold side, to force air against the cold heat sink

image

 

Then I installed the control board, the keypad, the fan and the dehumidifier on the Plexiglas panel. While I was thinking of the best placement for these components, I realized that I never asked to myself a very fundamental question: how hot air behaves in microgravity? Air in microgravity has no weight, so convective movements due to difference in air density that we see on our planet no longer applies. This leads to some interesting effects. For example, the candle flame in microgravity is spherical because the hot air does not move upwards (https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/18jun_strangeflames)

image

The absence of convective movements affects also astronauts sleep. When we sleep, we exhale hot gases (I mean, hotter than the external air). Hotter gases are less dense and naturally moves away from our head. In microgravity, the same gases will stagnate around our head. As we exhalate carbon dioxide, this may result in hypoxia. For this reason, astronauts have a fan in their sleep bed

 

That's said, it's not important that the fan is placed at the top of the Gr0G box: it can be installed in any position because hot air flows all around, not just upwards.

This it the final result

imageimage

 

1. 4-keys keypad

2. Pimoroni Automation hat

3. Cooler

4. Dehumidifier

5. Pimoroni Enviro hat

6. Raspberry Pi (the Gertbot in not mounted in this picture)

 

The Pimoroni Enviro hat is mounted on a bracket so to measure environment parameters near the center of the cube, This to have the most precise value as possible. The bracket is made of harmonic steel. The sensor board is kept in place by two screws and bolts with rubber supports typically used to install servo motors (however some other mounting options should be evaluated, because the current one is not very solid) . The bracket is then connected to the plywood board with all the electronics by means of an electric terminal: this makes very easy to adjust the position of the sensor

imageimage

 

I already developed some code (still to be improved and, yes, the that awful flicker has definitely to be removed)

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Top Comments

  • skruglewicz
    skruglewicz over 4 years ago +1
    Nice build amgalbu lot of great information thanks Steve K
  • skruglewicz
    skruglewicz over 4 years ago

    Nice build amgalbu

    lot of great information

    thanks

    Steve K

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