Blog

Drop seeder, Put those Seeds in the soil quickly

m.ratcliffe — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 15:09:00 GMT

Well Im back to making things and have a day a week to work on open source projects just for the fun of it [mainly farming tools], these are mechanical devices but electronics ones will soon follow As usual the designs are open source, link is...(read more)

Dibbling Plate, Put those holes in the soil quickly

m.ratcliffe — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 13:17:09 GMT

Well Im back to making things, I have changed jobs and now have a day a week to work on open source projects just for the fun of it. Seeding takes time and is relatively boring, this dibble plate will mean I have more time to do fun things: www.youtu...(read more)

Maitake Mushroom Cloning - Waiting to Fruit

rsc — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 14:48:38 GMT

No signs of fruiting yet, although the mycelium has completely colonized the substrate.I'm going to lower the temperature to 60F and raise the lighting and humidity levels to hopefully kickstart the fruiting phase.(read more)

Maitake Mushroom Cloning - Getting Close

rsc — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 20:04:36 GMT

To get mushrooms to fruit, the mycelium need to propagate throughout a sizable amount of substrate. This substrate must have the nutrients the mycelium require to grow and multiply. The exact formula for this substrate is unknown, and is ...(read more)

Maitake Mushroom Cloning - Results

rsc — Fri, 10 Aug 2018 13:32:14 GMT

Before I left for Sri Lanka in June, I started some clones in agar. This picture is after about 1 week of incubation.At the same time, I started some jar cultures of wood chips hoping they would be ready when I returned in July.They failed due ...(read more)

Maitake Mushroom Cloning - Procedure

rsc — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 14:43:18 GMT

So, how do you clone a mushroom?Here are the steps I will use to hopefully produce my yummy little 'shrooms.1) Prepare petri dishes and agar growth media for mycelium2) Sterilize agar using pressure cooker3) Obtain mushrooms for cloning and section s...(read more)

Maitake Mushroom Cloning - Why?

rsc — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 13:59:03 GMT

What are mushrooms? Mushrooms are the fruit of a very complex organism. They are known for many useful products, including medicines and water treatment. Some mushrooms are very tasty, and some are toxic.If you search the web for "mushroom life...(read more)

Maitake Mushroom Cloning

rsc — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 19:24:16 GMT

There doesn't seem to be much technology involved in mushroom farming, so I think I'll try and invent some...Here is a pic of my second attempt at cloning a Maitake mushroom. This is one week of mycelium growth on agar mixed with wheat ...(read more)

Blog:40.1 - Laser Cut Aquaponics Overview Infographics

m.ratcliffe — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 17:21:39 GMT

Ive been working on some educational material for teaching, Here are the Results. This is not one of my usual hacking Posts but I think it is a good example of how the hacking tool-set [rapid prototyping] can be used to bring better projects int...(read more)

Automated Green House Blog:5.2 - Vision based feeding Explination

m.ratcliffe — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 13:12:23 GMT

Today is a good day, The introduction of the 3rd Generation Pi is available! I cant wait to see what this does for the loop times of my vision based work on the pi. See the main page for other information: Automated Green House Blog's Home Page...(read more)

Automated Green House Blog:9.3 - Tip for trimming arduino If statement times

m.ratcliffe — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 17:59:39 GMT

This will not be a very useful tip for 99% of your arduino projects, but if you are wanting to keep your code running as quick as possible without reverting to C its a handy tip to have. Ive got a few arduino projects going now where I need to ...(read more)

Automated Green House Blog:13.4 - PH Control: PH Probe LCD Readout + Gui + Probe Health Readout

m.ratcliffe — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 19:16:14 GMT

A Updated PH Probe, Now gives A Readout For Probe Life and a time alarm for when to Calibrate. DFRobot were nice enough to send me one of their pH pro MCU probes [Longer lasting] but this tutorial and code will work for any analog pH MCU meter [...(read more)

Automated Green Blog:25.2 - One Month Grow Comparison

m.ratcliffe — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 15:32:43 GMT

Here is a little Video comparing the growth of Hydroponics,Aquaponics and soil in low light conditions. the Light intensity here in the north of the uk during winter is so low that the plants grow at a very slow pace, it is interesting to see th...(read more)

Automated Green House Blog:13.9 - PH Probe Revival: Ultrasonic Cleaning

m.ratcliffe — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 17:59:51 GMT

In Aquaponics systems pH probes fail quickly, it is my belief that this is due to the probe membrane becoming blocked [just my theory, no proof to back it up]. If this is indeed the problem it stands to reason that we could extend the probe life by c...(read more)

Conclusion

Former Member — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 03:47:40 GMT

So I suppose this blog post is very belated; however, I wished to sum up the events of the past few weeks and the total sum of the programming completed. Basically, I got stuck on the programming of the EZR32WG MCU. I tried to look through James's co...(read more)