I've just uploaded a video to YouTube about this project and welcome any feedback, questions or whatnot.
The system is powered by a regular phone charger - USB - 5V @ 500mA - 2.5W
Until viewing other similar projects, I had no idea that 150W is often a usual figure for power consumption and so do hope that my version is of help to people who wonder about such a project, wanting to do it cheaply.
Here's the info included in the description of the video -
An LED lighting and growing project, intended to use a readily available low power source - 5V at no more than 500mA - a USB phone charger.
Seeds from the original Habanero pepper plants grew well last summer and, with Winter looming, I decided to try and keep them going.
2 were left outside, but after covering them when the Polar Vortex came through (here in Oklahoma) and finding they were fine, decided to bring those in as well.
Whether the self designed 27MHz watering system aided their hardiness is unknown, all I do know is that the old pillow in front of them fell over at some point in the night !
The light bars consist of 2 rows of superbright LEDs.
8 x 1W white
8 x red
4x blue
A variable resistor was used to limit current to the reds and when the whites and blues came on, that value was used for a fixed resistor in place of the variable one.
Another small ohm resistor limits the blues too.
That's it, nothing fancy really and it's worked great !
Not only has it kept them going, but they've shed shaded leaves and grown new leaves as they've moved toward the light source.
Seeds from a lemon and an orange are now growing well too.
Lighting can be 12hr on/12hr off, or 24/7 switched on.
Apparently when left on all the time it promotes growth, when cycled it promotes budding and pepper growth.
Watering is twice a week, with a spray bottle also used daily.
There are no weeds at all, but again it's unknown whether the 27MHz system has factored.
A couple of green unripe peppers were brought in from the original plants and they ripened up under the LED's !
No fungicides. herbicides or any other chemical has ever been used in my own gardening.
The water used is rainwater, collected in 1 gallon jugs.
Not bad at all for 2.5W or less being used.
Mark
I absolutely love this...and would also like to hear AC's take on these results... 2.5 watts makes a plant thrive??
great stuff.
And, unexpectedly trees grow ;D
The lemon and orange trees have shot up in the past week, took about 18 days to germinate. Makes me laugh to see the taller one in the middle, it bends forward and backward as it grows, probably looking for the sun !
Those will stay indoors, says the wife. Will probably make a solar recharging Li-Ion set up for those.
It all came from seeing some guy on YouTube with a plant pot and an array of LED's. It ran from a car battery and it just looked like a ton of LEDs as a sort of canopy, held up with wire. What got me, was that people were using 40x 3W LED and such, it seemed a bit much and probably costly in several areas.
I had no idea what would be needed so winged it on reduced power.
Thanks Vladimir :)
I'll do a full explanation post here with details - sorry about the length !
Indeed, it was the awareness of all the chemicals in food that got me started about 4 years ago. The idea, at first, was just to see if anything could grow in the soil here in Oklahoma and produce produce, as it were. It's a sludgy clay soil from about 2ft down and i've still not much idea about its nutrient contents. One thing though, we don't clear the leaves from the back garden and have 2 large mature trees covering most of the area, that may well be helping the soil each year. One is a Pecan, the other is an American Elm...and if you know about the history of Elms being nearly wiped out in the 1970's/80's then you'll see why I said to my wife that we should put it on Ebay :D
Last year saw the introduction of a 27MHz circuit, based on research from an Irish University. In my opinion it works great, resulting somehow in a 95% reduction in weeds, fuller leaf growth, next to zero pest problems and more fruit. I put the aerial from the end into the rainwater for 15 seconds and then water the plants. A radio control from a toy car etc will work, but I did develop a decent circuit for it.
Last years habanero's were ridiculous lol, ended up giving quite a few dozen away and there were 200 peppers still on the plants when winter set in. Baseball/cricket ball sized tomatoes have also grown, from original seeds that produced regular tomatoes the first year (have got pics of all this if anyone doubts). I haven't used it over the past 2 months on the indoors ones..but think I might see what happens in the next 2 weeks as a test. Might go well, might not, the real sun might be needed if it's about charged ions.
The whole idea has simply been to keep them alive over winter, so why not let them be tested furthered *evil laugh*.
One thing I now know from viewing videos last night, is that my peppers are growing a bit lanky. It happens when the plants are looking for good light.
Tips would be to plant the same height of plants, make the led bar adjustable to suit growth height and oddballs should go in their own growers. Peppers leaves droop below 50F/10C, the room should always be well above that temperature, which is why these are in the bedroom (only heated room in the house).
This method is ideal for small spaces, in my opinion.
The next project is to be 2x ice cube trays with LED bar above each, for seedlings. Either USB or Li-Ion battery powered, the system will use solar to run/recharge. 1 will have an oscillator circuit running the LED bar (perhaps at 27MHz), the other will be the control with no circuit.
On to this circuit - which doesn't need a diagram in my opinion.
It's very simple, being LEDs in parallel.
A typical USB phone charger will be 5V - 5.5V at up to 1A.
I purposely am under-driving the 1W whites, to extend their life, reduce power needs and to make the circuit as simple/reliable as possible.
Connect all LEDs in parallel in their own banks. So all reds together in a strip, all white and all blue.
Pick a nominal value of current limiting resistor of say 1K, to protect all LEDs.
Reds will steal the power because of their lower conduction threshold, so a variable resistor pot goes in series with them. Adjust it until the whites and blues come on brightly.
If the blues come on well but the whites are dim, do the same for the blues.
Replace both resistances with fixed resistors of the values found.
The whites will be bright, but not at full brightness...it's a built in easy way of current limiting for them. Do whites matter for plant growth ? I don't know, but the light is certainly more beneficial to the eye when checking on them and I personally highly doubt that 8x red and 4x blue are doing all the work. They are also regular normal nothing fancy ultrabright LEDs.
That's it :)
The reds resistor should be a 1W type or thereabouts, because it gets warm. That's why there is a piece of tin around the one shown in the video.
Quoteʎɐqǝ ɯoɹɟ tree ɐ ʎnq ɹǝʌǝu
Strangely, that reads perfectly fine haha
And I must say, goat eggs are delicious O0
If laws aren't passing to label GMO products, why don't proud companies label their non GMO products ?
"To the best of our knowledge and best abilities to control ingredients - This product is GMO free"
Sales would adjust in the very same way and GMO labeling wouldn't be needed.
Looking forward to the build.
If you have a R/C transmitter you could build 2 setups, keep them 4ft/1 meter apart (at least) and then you'd have a control to test against. I recommend fresh rain water for indoor watering...city water is another problem these days !
The schematic for the 27MHz circuit is below. It's based on another found online for low harmonic distortions and cleaner signal.
Goat eggs and transmitting Air Hogs..... :o
what have I been missing.... :D
count me in too O0
Chet
Haha. Hey, quick reading there, I removed the AirHogs bit when I posted the schematic just now as an edit. But suffice to say, an AirHogs 2 channel aircraft transmitter seemed to work well.
Am going to start building the ice cube tray things a.s.a.p.
We have some cold weather at the moment and it's limited anything on any project.
Ah gotcha about the spraying and I take it we're not talking about crop dusting.
Is the water table deep there ? that's one idea, well water.
Or, see into whether your local area includes fluoridation of the water supply. Ours does and it cracked/holed my teeth.
I don't actually know where you are lol..you write great English, have a Russian first name and enjoy the Caribbean !
The preference of rain water is merely to be natural, with no artificial ingredients added.
Got to like this from Wikipedia on the plant
"Moringa oleifera is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Moringa, which is the only genus in the family Moringaceae"
Well, duh ! ;D
Triangular seed pods, that's cool in and of itself.
Hey look at this though, for a mega conundrum with the water situation:
"Moringa seed cake, obtained as a byproduct of pressing seeds to obtain oil, is used to filter water using flocculation to produce potable water for animal or human consumption"
Interesting thread guy's!
http://www.truliteled.com/review-225-led-grow-light-panels-worth/
Some of the issues encountered with LED grow systems are covered here.
@Rob - Will take a look !
I've learned so much in the past couple of days and welcome further reading O0
It's still eyebrow raising with the wattage figures. There's no way i'd have had a go if sticking to the crazy prices and wattage recommendations.
@Vladimir - Thanks for the back story. I would say you could consider yourself a world person. No hang ups on patriotic expectations, the product of a melting pot of influences. It must give a broader view of a lot of life situations.
Attached is a circuit diagram, Chet was also asking about the exact method of connecting.
The resistor values are those found to brighten the whites and blues on my set up with the LEDs I have here, while limiting the reds to do so.
R1 is the basic current limiter for all. It should be a 1W type as it will get warm.
R2 is the red limiter, because otherwise they will steal all the juice from the other LEDs.
The 1W whites are running at what is guessed to be 80% brightness. It will extend the life of them, but also likely alters the colour temperature. Talking of temperature, no heatsinks are required for the 1W LEDs.
Oh haha, seems you know me well.
Yes, indeed, the DMC-12 would be my 'affordable' classic of choice. It would be converted to electric and gain whatever the heck it is that Tesla Motors have just put into their Model S...the P85D version now has 'Insane Mode' !!!! 0-60MPH in 3.2 seconds.
Am in Oklahoma, Tulsa area. We moved here from Minnesota in 2008, myself having moved to the USA in 2007, when Julie and I wed :)
I've changed the configuration of the LED's. Much more logical now, having the small bar at the front and bigger one at the back. It better matches the plant heights and the little trees in the middle now have more light. Some LED's have been arranged to put light more evenly across the plants (by bending the legs).
I was going to start daily spraying, using the 27MHZ, but am going to wait for 2 weeks to see how they do with this change first.
Grow Lighting: LED vs. HPS
http://www.hightimes.com/read/grow-lighting-led-vs-hps
direct link to the study referred to in the article, is below:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0099010
and some comedy:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2626390/Gangs-stripping-away-LED-headlights-luxury-Range-Rovers-using-grow-cannabis-latest-car-crime-trend.html
;D
Great links O0
Did indeed laugh at the headlight stealing...some peoples kids eh.
Enjoyed the research articles. What was especially interesting was the inclusion of green, which i'd been lead to believe was no good at all for growing. One thing with these pepper plants, is that leaves that are covered by others above will brown and drop off, causing lankiness. Green, they say, penetrates a canopy or leaves the best...so it gave me an idea.
With 'bog standard' blues and reds doing a fine job here and being way under 1W types, why not use RGB LEDs ?
White was also mentioned as beneficial when 'cool white', which is perhaps how mine are running, being only 80% or so bright.
Here's an idea, to make a bank of the RGB type, out of those NeoPixel ones from Adafruit.
http://www.adafruit.com/product/1138
60 LEDs on a strip for $24.95. Those things are intriguing for so many projects and i'm certainly going to look into them.
They have an onboard chip on each LED, such that a microcontroller (Arduino, PIC, Raspberry Pi) can make any LED in the strip have its own colour !
If a plant is losing lower leaves, turn up the green right above it, if flowering is to be increased have them turn on and off with a simple timer routine. Lights could also be cycled in colour every few hours, red to white to blue to green. Or say 21hrs red with an hour each of the others.
After a trial run it seems like it would make an excellent Kickstarter/Indiegogo idea to me :)
'ima do it', as they say.
@Vladimir - Yep, dip the aerial in the water for 15 seconds, charge the water and spray.
Nearly all DeLoreans are in good order nowadays, but there are still some basket cases ripe for powertrain replacement with electric drive. Affordable was meant in terms of sub $10K as a project vehicle and still out of possibilities, but an objective in life. Affordable in comparison to say a VW camper van here in the USA at 60-70K for a nice one !
MCR
Ahhh the old Chevy Apache, one of my favorites...
Had a few of those handsome beasts..they never let me down.
O0
Hey look what I found in my collection...
It's 10 years older, cos I collect vehicles from the year I was born, but would this be an Apache Chet ?
Just says Custom '69 Chevy PickUp and doesn't give the model.
Back to LED's and growing...i've properly inspected the browned parts of some leaves. It's highly focused on the leaf right above.
A natural way the plants readjust themselves and, instead of just going brown in that spot or area of a leaf, they shed the whole leaf and start again !
The green light is going to factor on future builds, perhaps on 20 AWG or similar bendy extension wires, such that they can be positioned for effectiveness.
OH I like that bendy wire idea,I could see this as a whole new way to
Plump up the middle of some of these plants,although might have to put a wee shade/reflector on the top of the middle grow bendy lights so as to not illuminate the undersides of the leafs above?
69 Apache ...? Not sure....although I do think you might be living in old Apache country?? :o
I must add there are fellows that love that body style truck ,and they are also worth some Mullah.
@Chet - oh aye, this town was the end point for the 'Trail of Tears' !
The bendy wire idea will work much like a swan neck light. If a leaf is showing signs of needing a bump in light, the green will illuminate it. I have no idea if green going upwards or sideways would be a problem - but will find out in time :)
@Mr.C - it was mentioned in some reading that Rob posted earlier. Green apparently can penetrate foliage, but blue and red have difficulty. Hence, with any brown bits causing the plant to sack the whole leaf, green seems a good route.
If your plant has no overhangs of leaves that block light to others, then green wouldn't be needed at all.
It's all pointing to RGB individually controllable lights in my opinion, those NeoPixels. Will hopefully get some of those at the start of next month (have had car repair work bills this month already).
Ordinarily, but think of a cactus or air plant and such.
Plants without traditional leaf growth and overhangs ;)
I've started taking a pic per day of the plants, now that they have the lighting a bit different :)
The idea being to do a short video or perhaps animated GIF of the changes over the first 2 weeks. Such things should be beneficial for analysis later on. After 2 weeks, another 2 weeks with a couple of greens added on bendy wires.
My daily harvest from the outdoor garden. I think it's a combo of the soil and dam water. I may try transplanting some tomato plants to pots to see if I can keep them through the winter using the LED method.
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10359391_10153591139822786_6411007855269613222_n.jpg?oh=c0d3e370578378955c11f8f141be36d2&oe=5553B7F9&__gda__=1432795782_d39951844a89a573622a147f4b35fdaa)
Daily ??!!! :o
Excellent !
Mind you, you're Australian, that could be from 84 Hectares and using a helicopter to get around hehe
Do you put any 'stuff' on the plants at all ?
You're certainly not making a basket case out of growing.
O0
Lol I've had to use dipel to kill cabbage moth larvae which is a bacteria approved for organic farming. I have an area of 10X7m for the veggie patch. I planted too many tomatoes this year (30 plants) and now I'm picking several kilo a day, which isn't hard when you get ones like this . Plenty of corn and pumpkins about to be harvested.
Ooh nice :)
I tried corn last year. It grew to 'knee high by 4th of July' as they say and did so very well. Then stopped, shrank back on itself and they all died off !
Thing is, corn isn't corn anymore C.C
One thing to note about the 27MHz system. It was claimed (by Limerick University) that as well as better plant growth and nearly zero weeding, that pest control is much improved.
We had some trouble when the original pepper plants were in the spare room over last winter. I made the mistake of opening the window in there, when the temps were a very reasonable 60F or so.
Spider mites got in ! which lead to some leaf loss. I used some washing up liquid in the water and the problem cleared up.
However, here's where it gets good.
When I moved the plants outside, they were put right next door to some tomato seeds and the lot grew together during summer. By early October, the tomatoes developed an infection of spider mites...BUT...even though some leaves from the peppers were even touching leaves of the tomatoes, the peppers remained completely mite free !
I shouldn't say completely, there were wispy trails across from the tomatoes, yet nothing happened to the peppers. Not a single leaf gained that horrid under covering or anything.
It sounds stupid, but did the peppers develop an immunity ? and was there any link to the watering system ?
These indoor peppers are from those plants...I wonder what may happen outdoors from Spring.
If they get mited then fair enough, but I like keeping an open mind about the watering system.
Using it produced a few of these the year before and went onward from their seeds to supply more ! The packet they came from was expected to deliver average sized ones...so something good happened from somewhere.
Was just looking over the plants and - we have another tree growing :D
Julie says it's a lemon tree. She planted the row in the middle and says lemons were on the right, oranges on the left.
There's not much to him yet, so i've arrowed where to look :)
Just a quick update.
The way the light bars are now arranged had lead to thoughts that the very rear 2 plants were light starved (in the cut ex milk container).
So i've introduced Sun movement lol
At night, the main bar is slid backwards to be more above those plants, returning more forward during the day.
The leaves on those 2 have perked up noticeably :)
I'll have to arrange a spot to take pictures from lol. The picture per day idea is all over the place !
But here's a short 3 seconds per pic video of what's going on so far. The last pic is of 1 of the orange trees, which now is developing a nice 3rd leaf on the top.
Have made a Spectroscope.
It's similar to something like this:
http://www.euhou.net/index.php/exercises-mainmenu-13/classroom-experiments-and-activities-mainmenu-186/178-a-home-made-spectroscope
What I wanted to know, was about any strong blue or red within the 1W LED output. Of particular note, that the LEDs are only being driven to around 80% of their rated brightness, if that.
Turns out that there is quite the strong blue component to the light :)
I may well build another, a bit better and a bit bigger, but this has been really useful for explorations of the types of lights around here, having never used one before.
Here are a couple of pics, of the results and 1 of the little spectroscope itself.
There are now 5 trees ! :D
Looking at the line, going along the middle of the grow area and looking at spacings, nearly every seed has germinated.
That's pretty cool, though i've no real idea what we'll do with them yet. Am thinking of individual grow pots when the weather warms up. Perhaps near windows for good warm weather and then LEDs for the winters.
Maybe some kind of Bonsai would work.
A post to follow a conversation with Chet.
Techponics is one name that's been given to a ferris wheel type of device, that rotates and dips plants in a water bath as it goes.
Motor driven, the device rotates continually at an ultra slow speed.
A strong light source is housed in the middle of the unit, such that light is perfectly equidistant to all plants.
Seedlings are contained by mesh wire, which replaces soil and so allows the plants to hang upside down during the turning cycle.
As the plants grow, they further embed themselves within the wire and that offsets their increased trunk and foliage weight.
Apparently, they grow stronger, sort of like being within a strong wind would do.
It appeals as a space related growing idea, not just to save space, but to grow up there outside the Earth.
More info:
http://www.gizmag.com/volksgarden-hi-tech-hydroponics/12915/ (http://www.gizmag.com/volksgarden-hi-tech-hydroponics/12915/)
http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/hydroponic-ferris-wheel-optimizes-growth-the-omegagarden-video.html (http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/hydroponic-ferris-wheel-optimizes-growth-the-omegagarden-video.html)
https://4hydroponics.com/hydroponics/rotate (https://4hydroponics.com/hydroponics/rotate)
http://inhabitat.com/the-green-wheel-is-a-nasa-inspired-rotary-hydroponic-garden/ (http://inhabitat.com/the-green-wheel-is-a-nasa-inspired-rotary-hydroponic-garden/)
A picture from the gizmag website -
Mark
I suppose those Ferris wheel systems are geared towards a specific market. :o
I can't imagine a more efficient use of the light ,very nice indeed.
1300 watts, I wonder what your system would do in this configuration ?
plus a dip in a special frequency pool to boot...
If anywhere outside Colorado and a couple more places, it might be wise for law enforcement to check fairground rides lol
"Sorry. the ride is out of service, that's why there's a bunch of weeds growing on it"
Spendy stuff, $3000 typically.
I like your idea though, SSG the heck out of it and use the flyback to light the LEDs !
A good old fashioned gearbox would take care of the size of the wheel and speed of rotation. Pretty sure that a bit of wood, few metal tubes and some kitchen pan cleaning pads would go a long way to cost savings :)
Correct me if wrong, but isn't the point of the Energenx bike wheel kit having a fan, to improve performance and make use of the rotor spinning ? seems ideal for a repurposed use.
I'd probably have a go at a mini version, except i'm not a fan of seeing seedlings drop a few feet out of their holders. It would take some good scrutiny of how the root holders are made.
Mark
if your findings are accurate , Growing food indoors year round is
a reality for even the poorest of folk,I see this as a compliment to
Rob Mason's work.[sun driven water pump]
and then we add these wheels to harvest even more of the light,maybe they don't even have to turn [water tubing arteries]? I've seen hanging tomato plants ...
Finding an appropriate crop would be important ,perhaps tomatoes are not nourishing enuff?
Mr.Caribbean was mentioning a plant which yielded much benefit [nutritional] ??
I find this a very exciting path to investigate...
Growing food indoors on a USB out put.... :o
I think upside down and sideways should be the next experiment in your Wee forest
Will your WEE Orchard thrive if inverted over the Top in some way?
capturing the light that is lost to the ceiling...or out the side??
thinking outside the Box.... perhaps a sphere instead of a wheel...?
Hydroponics has always intrigued me ,[growing with out soil] ,but the power needed makes it a rich mans Gimmick ,
not anymore....
seems a home run to me O0
Re: volksgarden
If you do the math, at 1300 watts of input power, there would be only certain crops you could grow that could pay the utility bill and make it worthwhile. If you have an electrically heated home, on the other hand, it might make some sense.
If everyone used one of these, nuclear plants would be popping up all over to provide the needed power.
The sun is free and "green"......why I have a greenhouse and use the sun to dry my clothes.
ION
Mark seems to be having success with 2-3 watts input [with a Frequency
enhancer too] in a completely dark environment ..
worthy of investigation and review.
Thanks for the kind and supportive comments Chet :)
One thing to point out has just been raised and that's why i'm editing before posting.
The bedroom where these plants are has no natural light. We cover the windows in winter heavily, to reduce heating costs. So the only light these plants have had is from the LEDs. Most rooms will likely not have that situation and may further be helped with any lanky growth condition, caused by lack of light striking low down leaves.
The system uses USB, 5V at around 500mA.
Extra lighting is in the form of 1x 2.5W LED bulb as my reading light, which is 180 degrees facing away from the plants. The other is a 13W CFL as my wifes reading light. The plant lights can't even be seen from where she is (that's also why there's a pizza box on the right side in photos lol). It's about the same as growing in a box or wardrobe.
As a jump start for climates that have short growing seasons, it's completely ideal. Also, if there's a wish to simply try out anything from anywhere. If your growing area is indoors and likely warm all the time, then there has to be some fun factor with knowing that a palm tree can grow in Alaska lol
Or, up there in the Northern States, you could vacation in Nevada, bring back some sand and a cactus and keep on growing it !
I do see this going forward as a pre-season starter method, as the cheapest way of germinating and growing ready for outdoor planting. One reason for the USB powering is its ease of setting up for anyone to replicate, including me !
The LED cost is tiny and that helps too. Absolutely no need for 3W versions for such uses.
Mr. Carribean is well placed to do trials, with being in an apartment etc...I hope he does :)
One idea is to water from above, where normal gravity would pull water through hydroponic plants and down into soil as the horizontal section. On its way, it would could pass through all manner of angles, watering all as it went. A good point is that these LEDs don't get warm in any way and, beside the connecting legs, they are 100% waterproof. With heatshrink around the legs, they could get rained on all day !
I may try a couple of seedlings in Brillo pads...will have to watch a couple of how-to videos first though.
Also, the wheel idea could be done outside just as readily. Geared to use a wind turbine to revolve, lit by the sun, watered by the clouds. Put the thing on wheels and everything is there for compact area growing.
It is difficult to do "controlled" experiments with plants as Cleve Baxter and others have pointed out.
A double blind study although better, might also have "leaks".
I agree about Cleve Baxter....it's been mentioned that my treating plants more like pets, may be a factor in some experiments.
Best bet, really, is to have several people of all growing experience conduct experiments. The only link being of a USB cellphone type charger for power and LEDs.
Heck, make it a challenge, with prize money for the best systems. Might be a good school or Uni contest.
I'm aiming at going for solar power and 2x Li-Ion batteries. that way it's all free with having the parts here.
Another route may be microprocessor control of lighting cycles and LED intensity. Adjusting the programming with increased results for lights on/off, different colour LED setup cycling and fit a moisture sensor. Just practical things.
Saw a video today of an aquaponics system, where the guy had his plants hooked up to the internet !...the sensors would send him emails if the plants were dry ???
Another lemon seed was found in a salad today...so it's gone in to the spot where No.6 would have been, if the original had germinated.
"I am not a number, I am a free man!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW-bFGzNMXw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW-bFGzNMXw)
A prisoner within the white foam box ?
Anyhow, this will be No.6, as a tree, if all goes well :)
Short vid of the planting technique, not that there's anything special to it and, unfortunately no large bouncing ball anywhere in the video.
What ever happened to....
Yesterday was planting day :)
Back outside, after their winter LED foray. The trees are also now in their own pots and have been placed near to a south facing window. Of note, on the right is 'Number 6' but he's not Number 6 !
That guy popped up only a week or so back, but not where the other seed was planted.
Lessons learned include:
Plants will happily trundle through a winter with substantially less lighting costs than would be expected.
White LED's are beneficial and need not be 3W or higher.
Super bright white 1W LED's can be driven at much lower power and produce an effective warm light, plus expected longer life.
The whole system can run from a regular phone charger and support many plants.
LED's should not be drastically moved once in place - these guys shed leaves afterward and grew leaves in very different places after the change of positions.
LED's should be close to the top of plants, bright green healthy shine dulls with distance.
Plants will become lanky if light is shaded from lower leaves.
Watering with regular rain stored in gallon jugs is perfectly fine.
No chemical additives need be introduced at all during outdoor or indoor growing !
Mark
In Indiana a company is running big time with "pink" LED's
which ones do you owe the Koala ?? :o [sorry different topic .........
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/05/10/philips-and-green-sense-partner-for-led-farming-rd/
Blue 8)
So pink, being white and red, does give credibility to the whites that were used over the winter.
Good good.
I should really do some building now, before winter is even close, to get a system ready.
What i'm going to do, is to put whites and reds close together, simulating the pink.
Blue will be interspersed, with green lower down, on 20AWG wire, such that they can be positioned where needed to limit lanky growth.
No idea what is to be kept growing or planted from seed though. This year has seen monsoons and other ridiculous weather, the upshot being that only the peppers and trees are really around this year.
Must say about 1 comical addition though. I was eating a salad a couple of weeks ago and after finishing it, noticed that a tomato seed was caught in a tooth. I picked the seed from the mouth and planted it :D
Attached is a pic of it now....
Wow slider are you growing lemon trees, that might take a while. They look ok, good job.
I usually grow tomatoes for experiments but they have problems of their own.
I conducted an experiment with galvanic cell current through the soil and a directed pulsating LED light powered by another galvanic cell, but the experiment failed to produce any solid results.
I was thinking of redesigning a similar experiment with more subjects. More control subjects and more test subjects, I gotta keep it simple and remove as many randoms as possible unfortunately indoor space is restricted here while outdoor space is much. I did buy some long planter pots to go along a wall. I'll read back to refresh and have a think about what I can grow. Weather might be ok to germinate some tobacco, I'll have to check out the forecast.
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Yep, the lemon and mandarin orange trees are going well.
No idea which is which yet lol. We may well try to Bonsai them.
But, there was a disaster about a week ago, when one of our cats attempted to climb out of the closed window !
It knocked the whole lot onto the ground and we lost 'Number 6'. That was the little tree, that was, well, number 6 of the seeds to pop up under the LED's. It literally was lost. I picked all the soil up and replanted them and such, but No. 6 was nowhere to be found. Got a feeling that I know where the cat stood !
Found another cherry tomato seed stuck in me gob today on eating a salad...so planted him in the same pot as the other :)
No chemicals of any type will be used, in common with all planting here. Rainwater for watering, collected in gallon jugs.
The only additions are grass mulch and tree leaves from the back yard.
Lidmotor had an experiment going with 'Phylis' some years back. he had a magnesium firestarter and a piece of copper in a pot, with a phyllidedrum (sp?) plant. Blocking oscillator attached. When the LED would begin to fade off, he would water the plant.
There are concerns of metals though, in my opinion and some plants will be hardier than others.
I would suggest a well built uA constant light oscillator, powered from multiple metals rods, in a section of soil sectioned off by a piece of plastic. If the separator is just below the top soil line, then the plant water should still be able to cross through, but any galvanics induced metals seepage will be contained.
The big problem, one of which i've only ever partially sorted, is that of summing galvanic cells that share an electrolyte - as in, all the metal pieces in the same ground. Only 1 negative needs to be in the ground, all the oscillators can connect to that same piece, but have their own positive metal. All oscillators will output individually like that, but not summed...and I need to return to that problem ???
If outdoor space is easy to work with, then you could do worse than mounting things on a sun facing wall (I have no idea where the sun is in Australia lol). Especially if your wall stays relatively warm in winter, from house heat.
Some plexi, a pop bottle or similar, covering small plants, will help with watering them in dry times.
As to indoors....I grew the trees in my bedroom !
As an update to all this....
The tomato TREE is 8ft tall ;D
About a dozen of those mini type are now growing on it and 1 of them has just to turn red. All rather bizarre for the end of November. Pollination is possible without a second plant, noticed with peppers too, just the tip of a paintbrush or similar to go from flower to flower.
Within the vid is an update on the actual trees, a couple of which have grown really well.
Some stuff is now under LED's for winter.
This year sees approx 80 LED's of red/white/blue as the system that is taking shape....all running off the same cellphone USB charger (700mA).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UflZNG0ceEU
(2mins 55sec)
(@Peter - we seem to have lost embedding of videos ?)
Quote from: Slider2732 on 2015.11.27, 02:10:09
As an update to all this....
The tomato TREE is 8ft tall ;D
About a dozen of those mini type are now growing on it and 1 of them has just to turn red. All rather bizarre for the end of November. Pollination is possible without a second plant, noticed with peppers too, just the tip of a paintbrush or similar to go from flower to flower.
Within the vid is an update on the actual trees, a couple of which have grown really well.
Some stuff is now under LED's for winter.
This year sees approx 80 LED's of red/white/blue as the system that is taking shape....all running off the same cellphone USB charger (700mA).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UflZNG0ceEU
(2mins 55sec)
(@Peter - we seem to have lost embedding of videos ?)
Posted on the video Mark
I think the big tree is a lemon, crush a leaf and see if it smells of lemon :)
regards
Mike 8)
It's no lemon Mike, it's really a very nice...ohhh ;D
Hey good idea about the leaf, will try that.
I think, therefore, that 4 are lemon trees and 1 is a Mandarin orange tree.
@Mike - yep, smells of lemon :)
Must pass this along.
It appears that cross pollination has resulted in a fresh type burner of a pepper.
Over the few years now of these same original batch of peppers being side by side, perhaps also keeping them going over winters, has resulted in those small looking traffic light peppers shown in the video.
I'd blamed the very heavy rains and flooding of earlier in the year, for their lack of usual growth.
Only, they're not dwarf traffic lights !
I decided to try the one that's now turned from green to red. Expected a nice enough mild pepper taste.
Bit the end of it and, ashamedly ran straight to the kitchen bin to empty my mouth LOL
Hiccuping, the whole bit :D
What they are, are big Habanero's !
Shown in the pic are a regular Habanero top left, then the new guys.
UK 2p coin and USA 25c coins for sizes.
Not bragging or anything... oh who am I kidding...
Picked these yesterday. First time I've grown spuds.
Very nice Jim !
You can now go all overunity on life, by planting just a few when they sprout and getting another similar batch.
I had a large plant pot on a windowsill back in England, the potatoes would sprout, grow to about 4 or 5ft tall, flower and underneath were more potatoes. Nothing pollenated it. i just cut the 'tree' down, removed some of the spuds and it kept going around and around for about 2 years before I moved property!!! i mean, it's ridiculously overunity isn't it :D
Same thing going on with the tomato seed that was caught in one of my teeth. No bees, kept indoors and look at the crop LOL, over 2 dozen Cherry types with most approaching full size now.
We had to go to Minnesota for about a week, because unfortunately my wife's dad passed away. Replanted the tomato tree in a 5 gallon polystyrene cooler and filled it with soil, leaves and got it well watered. Came back the other day and all is fine...it's mid December !
All of this is the link for indoor growing under LED's.
Your potatoes would carry on fine, with no cycle to worry about, if theres good light and the ground stays warm.
Yield is increased, pests are non existent and if you use solar and batteries with an efficient lighting system, free all winter. Genetic defects, through none varied plant pollenation don't seem to have figured, but may.
Today saw the moving of several plants, from the spare room to the bedroom for LED wintering.
Amazingly, with no heat in that other room, even the tomato plant is still going. There's a heater in there now, to see if the behemoth can make it to New Year. About 3 dozen tomatoes would be about a week away from matured, if it was summer.
In the warm room now are the following:
Approx 10 x Habanero and bell pepper bushes
An apple tree - grown from a pip
An mandarin orange tree - grown from a pip
A weed thing that we think may be a foxglove
4 x lemon tree - 1 of which is 3ft tall and to be given away to a guy with a heated greenhouse
3 x cactus
LED amounts can be gauged in the attached pic.
34 x red 3mm
40 x blue 5mm
15 x white 5mm
7 x 1W white - nowhere near full power, but a nice warm output
2 x Harbor Freight warning triangles - one of which has several white LED's removed and replaced with blue
LED power source:
2x 500mA cellphone adapters, the Harbor Freight red triangle lights caused a dimming with only 1 adapter in use, so they have their own. Those have no circuitry, but 1 of them does still have its factory functions circuit (for red, white and flashing red).
Pic here for Chet.
It's February and the tomato tree is still going. It's produced 4 dozen tomatoes and is flowering again.
Will probably produce another dozen when I wash the window !
Hi Slider
Veg tastes so much better when grown at home, not tried the indoor growing yet, but we had a good crop of potatoes and onions which we only just finished eating from last September pickings, i am still eating pickled beetroot.
One of our most prolific vegetables that i like are runner beans, did you know that they will re grow next year if the bulb under the soil is kept frost free, this would be a great one to try indoors if a climbing area could be rigged up, you can also buy yard long beans, being able to supply a controlled environment could make these really good croppers, i am not sure the Mrs would like things climbing all over the place indoors though.
Thanks Peter :)
Yes, good point about the better halfs inclusion in such experiments. mine hates to see things wither away and so is quite happy that an 8ft sprawling tree of a tomato plant is in that room. This year has seen just 1 room heater used in there, previous years have seen all sorts of blankets, window coverings and heating and such. It's been incredibly mild though - 50's and 60's Fahrenheit mostly....probably just as warm in Centigrade.
All is quite silly, when thinking that the LED plants in the other room could have been kept in that room too ! but, we didn't know about the mild winter.
The big tree (on the left of the LED's pic on the last page) has gone to a friend of my wife's, who has a heated greenhouse, so that's a great forwarding of that one.
The apple tree has gone mad under the LED's and needs to be trimmed. I think it could survive outside but maybe when thicker trunked and such ?
1 of the lemon trees has the traits of the 2ft high one, it's now spreading along the underneath of the LED's.
All in all, everything is better than the lanky traits of last year, with new leaves appearing all over plants. Interestingly, the Harbor Freight lights were set to red, but when changed to white the new growth appeared immediately and strongly..was surprised about that. Those in the red bucket were the ones that survived outside as basically sticks, with a leaf or 2 well into winter.
Finally, no issues at all with powering. The 2 cellphone 5V 500mA chargers are cool to the touch all the time. Maybe all would run with the original 700mA on its own, but that is now in use charging lipo batteries.
An amazing video here of a guy growing cucumbers in school 191 from one grow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoBde8tTxcw
Time to reintroduce the LED growing.
The plants have done well outside even with a couple of cold bouts recently, video attached below.
Now that the weather is properly turning though, it's time to bring some in.
Literal bunches of cherry tomatoes have been a good result, yet the whole project was hampered by not watering the plants enough in the summer !!! it's taken until now for the fruiting to get near to ripening, for the tomato plants especially...oops.
Nearly all will be brought in for ripening under LED's, which worked out OK last year. The plants themselves will be covered overnights, but high temps seem like they'll be only in the mid 60's Fahrenheit at best.
What also hasn't happened, unfortunately, has been the wish to have a multi generational setup going. To have a tomato plant growing from the seed of a tomato that itself came from the huge indoor plant. That original is still fruiting and growing well, it's a year and a half old.
Quick vid for you chaps, showing the outdoor plants and the indoor tomato 'tree'.
(2min 19sec)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w6O8xKLd7k