The Farm Hack River of Activity

I like this. Maybe we should talk about collaborating: see my project at http://farmhack.net/tools/record-keeping-profitability-analysis-tool We could geek out on spreadsheets.

Greetings,

My research focus is integrated disease management for orchards in the northeastern US, apple scab is my main focus. There are several projects I'm currently involved in that you may be interested in, including the use of a predictive model (RIMpro) and Potassium Bicarbonate (KBC) for apple scab control. Vincent Philion at Irda in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville is a great person to talk to regarding RIMpro and KBC. The University of Vermont also has several individuals who are Farmhack members and others who are focused on orchards (Terry Bradshaw for organics).

Hi Jenna, Cool work you're doing there. Last year I had to calculate the size of a solar panel and battery required to support 30 tablets and a Raspberry Pi for 8 hours a day. Here's the calculations I came up with. It includes a couple of helpful links at the beginning for educating yourself on how to do the calculations yourself as well as some example technologies. Louis also helped out by verifying those calculations.

On the number of pins issue. I wonder if using a device like a Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone with USB capabilities would be a viable option. Plug in a USB hub and a couple of USB-to-Serial adapters and you could potentially have all the pins you ever need. I've never tried it myself so there might be some limitations there I haven't run into. The other option is more Bees/Arduinos talking to a central unit that is running the logic and sending commands back to the nodes. The Bee+Hive project Louis and I were working on has that potential but we have yet to build in sending automation commands from the Hive to the Bees.

• RJ

Hi Jenna,

I just wanted to chime in and say that I've seen your previous tools and I like 'em! I realized that your temperature logger was intentionally a stripped down version compared to my Fido project and that idea struck a chord with me. A lot of the work that I'm trying to post-Fido is to try to make the communications part easier -- which is essentially what made Fido more complicated than your device.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, that I'd like to send you an Apitronics Bee to help you as a controller and as a charger for what you're doing (in reference to your italics Housing). Worst case, it's just a charge controller. But based on what I've seen of your previous hacks, you know how to write some Arduino code so you'll at least make a good local controller out of it. Plus, if I've done a good job, you'll also be able to figure out how to use the networking side of it and be able to monitor things remotely, but that'd be a bonus.

Amongst other things, the Bee might also help with food dispensing. If you could find some kind of motor or actuator to dump a ration, you could put it on a timer or on remote control. I've also used Bees to monitor water levels in tanks but that might not work with the buckets.

Let me know if you want to talk sensors or anything like that!

--Louis

this works great. I've been thinking about making one of these for some time and your tutorial really helped speed the process along. I ended up using an old 2 bay sink that I cut in half (so now I can build 2!)

Additions I'll probably make:

(1) a small fan at the top of the chamber that pipes the hottest air at the top of the chamber down to the bottom. (2) a strip of waterproof LEDs, or multiple strips, so that the first seeds to germinate don't become leggy (3) if i can't find a chest freezer, I'll probably make a simple frame out of aluminim and side with poly plastic panels. perhaps then I won't need the LEDs. I'll put a in an area of my seed starting area that gets indirect sunlight. (4) I ended up using a thermostat that I used to use with my heating mats. it has a remote, wired sensor, so that I can place the actual thermostat outside the chamber. I think Durostat makes a model with a remote sensor--probably a bit more expensive, but easier to set and read temp + you're not taking up valuable interior space.

thanks again. since I've never work on/with water heaters, I didn't realize water heater elements were so cheap and available.

Bill,
I would love to try the newest version.
What about embedding the google doc in the tool - even if it is read only. You could then add a download link with a permissions layer like tool post
http://farmhack.net/tools/open-enterprise-budget-organic-eggs

I think that might encourage use and feedback but also enable monitoring etc...

Hi Geoff, welcome to Farm Hack, I am part of a cooperative organic mixed farm near Lachute, QC. I am interested in participating / organizing Farm Hack events out here. Do you have info on the event coming up in May at Jean-Martin's farm?

I will try and add more to the the wiki later - but your description is pretty accurate. The vanes in the rotor spin the seeds out where they hit the stator (stationary ring. The hull is knocked off by the impact. In some impact dehullers I have seen, the stator is a stone like material, but the one documented here used a steel ring.

The seed/grotes and hulls are blown/expelled by the air movement caused by the rotation of the fins on the side of the rotor. The cyclone separator is designed to have a vacuum on the top to separate/winnow out the hulls and have the heavier seed drop down for collection. Alternatively the mixture can be collected and run through a fanning mill (which I will be documenting later this spring). A fanning mill screens for over and under size and separates by weight.

To hull barley or spelt more velocity is needed and a higher rotational speed. Hammers/impellers are also added to the rotor and a correctly sized screen is substituted for the stationary ring such that the hulled grain can be expelled, but the unhulled grain is beat up further until it is able to exit through the screens. I do not yet have any drawings of this feature.

It will be great to have this design into autodesk inventor. I hope that the sketchup drawings are helpful as a start. It needs some cleanup but I can save it in another format like 3ds for importing if it would be useful. My hope is that we can post machine files here too if you use a torch table or water jet etc. for cutting any of the pieces.

GPS has a resolution of about 50' (even with WAAS). Precision systems will usually set up 2+ transponders at known locations (known to the inch), and the guidance system will work off those.

Most of the discussion in this DIYDrones thread doesn't appear to realize the limitations of GPS - or even care about them. (And I understand why - DIYDrones are mostly interested in mapping and navigating.)

When you have large equipment in a field, you need precise control; nearly to the inch if you're planting/cultivating row crops.

Hi Jenna and Louis,

Thanks for the feedback.

Arduino - Certainly could do this with an Arduino board. I opted for an off the shelf PID control, which available with a remote bulb thermocouple and solid state relay cost about the same as an Arduino Uno. The control portion of the BOM is EITHER a PID OR a thermostat, so you don't need both. The PID does the job very nicely, is quite versatile, and they have become quite inexpensive (less than a thermostat). They also have an auto-tune function which adjusts the PID tuning variables by algorithm. Makes life simple. And no additional programming or electronics labor was required. The benefit of the Arduino would be additional I/O, I suppose.

Relative Humidity Control - The PID in this system could take an RH sensor as input as well. My experience has been RH measurement in low temp and high humidity environments is not well done with generally available sensors. Louis and I have discussed this and I have been cooking something up here as a prototype that I think will help address this need.

Energy Use - Sorry, haven't measured electrical kWhr consumption yet. Fundamentally, this is no different from a conventional humidifier. The energy required is that needed to raise the temperature of incoming water to the setpoint and then to evaporate it into the air. Conventional humidifiers do this as well. The difference is a matter of evaporation (humidification) capacity and rate. This design allows for high rates of humidification which requires high rates of evaporation which requires greater energy input. But it can also do lower rates and I would expect the energy use to be comparable to other humidifiers. The only difference being, perhaps, greater heat loss through the surface area of the bucket. But I think that will be minor. My first attempt at this involved hacking an existing humidifier to try to make it simply auto-fill. They are actually pretty complex little machines. In that case, the reservoir was held by the machine at slight vacuum which made controlled auto-filling difficult even with a fancier fill valve.

I also need to post a schematic and some build photos. 2nd generation build coming soon.

Would a Fido make sense for your needs? The current design wont open the vent for you but it will text message you when to get up and open those vents manually.