Upcycle It - Washing Machine Hydroponic Grower - #3 Preparation II

10 Apr 2017

As I am still waiting for the kit, I will share some more updates about the washing machine preparation.

As we suspected, the original machine motor is too much for turning the drum at such low RPM (1-3 RPM). Maybe the new washing machine models will have those multiphase motors that could be hacked to operate as a step motor but this is not the case of the 1996 washing machine we have.

The solution will be using a stepper motor (also upcycled from an old printer). Using a stepper motor will be easy to integrate it with the Edison kit and we will be able to adjust precise rotation and also stop the drum at set positions, handy for loading the plant baskets and harvesting. But the big advantage will be the power savings, the small stepper is more than enough to turn the drum at low RPM, not requiring gear boxes or complex pulleys arrangements.

We also decided to remove most of the front panel exposing the whole drum. This will give an industrial apparency for our rotary grower and will help with the ventilation avoiding condensation.

In order to still resembling a washing machine, we will re-install the original control panel lower down so we can use some push buttons to actuate some of the new functions.