So the biggest issue I have with this project is my day job, which continues to result in my planned weekends and weeknights being spent working on writing code and test cases. I know, there's no whining!
At any rate, the seeds have officially started germinating, and tomorrow is planned for more assembling and some testing. (Yes, actual pictures will be posted with tomorrow's update). I've got the motor drivers working with the linear actuators. However, the valve isn't working. I just got my MOSFETs yesterday, so I'm going to be building a full bridge circuit so that I can switch the power bidirectionally for the valve to open and close. I'll be using a 2N222 transistor to boost the voltage level up a bit to drive the MOSFET circuit. Also of note, is that I got my Ph probe, with instructions written in chinese. Thankfully, I work with an engineer who can actually read it. For the Ph probe, I'm using an off the shelf interface for it. I also have two high side current circuits that I purchased from Adafruit for ultimately measuring power usage at regular intervals.
And coding... the version of Fedora I have (22) doesn't want to play nicely with Silicon Labs' development environment. I've got a different laptop with an older version of Fedora on it, that I'll be installing on after I post this update. By my math, the seeds should be germinated by this time next week, and be ready to be put into the hydrocorn (expanded clay pebbles) that is going to reside in the 2" netpots that are in the tiered grow structure that I'll be hopefully completing tomorrow... as long as there isn't another "the sky is falling" kind of defect that gets reported at my "day job."