Week Seven & Eight (Feb 19 - Mar 2)
- verticalfarmprojec
- Mar 1, 2018
- 2 min read
During this two week, we have gone to Green Sky Growers in Winter Garden to collect the materials Dr. Javier Garces and the managers offered to give us. We took advantage of this visit and took some pictures of some final stage lettuce. This type of lettuce are the ones we are planning to grow in our system.
In addition to that, we have started to meet more often to start putting the mechanical and electronic part together. During this process, we have encountered some issues (as expected). First, we found out that one of the outer small gear was moving back and forth from the rod that held it when the system was on (or moving). We believe that this happened because we have put coir (soil) in the trays. The picture below illustrates the gear that was giving us trouble.
The solution for that was to change the gear. The new gear is the same size, but the hole to insert in the rod was thinner than the other one. Moreover, we have planned to change the metal (steel) rod for a different type so that the screws that hold the gears can touch a flat surface and not round.
Another issue we have found was the Soil Moisture Sensor that we planned to use. The type we have decided to use is the FC-28. However, after testing it several times, we have noticed that the sensor values are not consistent, they are not reliable. Values change constantly and they are not stable. We believe that the problem is being caused by a comparator and potentiometer that the sensor is attached to. The solution to this problem was to buy two different kind of soil moisture sensor for Arduino:
Capacitive Soil Sensor
We have decided to try this sensor because the one we have is a resistor soil sensor.
Resistor Soil Sensor (Without comparator)
Since we believe that the comparator is causing problems, we have decided to buy a different resistor soil sensor. This one has the three connections directly attached to the sensor.
Putting aside the two challenges mentioned above, everything went smooth and well. We have taken some pictures.
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