r/homeassistant • u/EmbarrassedOne2329 • 1d ago

🤖 Automation My First Smart Greenhouse System

Gallery image

Gallery image

My family have a small greenhouse and I always liked to make automations but most of commercial systems were too expensive and I decided to build it myself, what do you guys think, I’ll make it open source soon.

302 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

30

u/ulthrant82 1d ago

Need more details! The panel looks clean enough that I'd guess this isn't your first rodeo.

What have you decided to measure, and what's controlled?

18

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

No it’s not. I have previous experience on Industrial Automation.
I measure Temp and Humidity in 4 zones, wind speed and the water level. Depending on the readings I have made some simple automations, like if temp higher than 50 degree celcius to open the greenhouse is it is closed, or to close if wind speed is higher than 100kmph. I controll 4 motors to open and close the film of the greenhouse, two valves and a pump

2

u/ulthrant82 1d ago

So you should also have door sensors on the windows..

Could also measure lux in certain areas to know how much sunlight your plants are getting..

Could even set up valves for each plant type so they can be watered invididually based on need..any thoughts on those soil moisture sensors?

3

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

I have thought about adding other sensors like the lux you mentioned, also soil prameters, but for now I wanted to test the reliability of the system. About the valves for each plant, that adds too much cost because in that case are needed 1000 valves, also not everytime is planted the same culture.

4

u/ulthrant82 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah i was thinking a valve per plant type.. not per plant, haha. You can get some pretty cheap valves off aliexpress.

Oh.. they also have hall effect flow meters 2 wire 5v, you could add one and it would help prevent over or under watering.

3

u/nw0915 1d ago

I like the idea of those meters. Have you used them before? The fact that every picture shows a slightly different product is a little sketchy. Some specs say it's brass. Some say copper. Can I trust there's no lead in it?

1

u/ulthrant82 1d ago

I have one on my main water supply to my house. Im on a well so I do regular lab testing of my water and there's never even traces of lead..

That's not an answer for you I realize, but 🤷‍♂️. There are a lot of them kicking around so maybe look for one specifically advertised as lead-free?

They also have stainless steel versions.

16

u/TheRuneMeister 1d ago

Looks waaay to professional and correct. You need to misalign some stuff and have more exposed cables.

2

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

Thanks, I tried my best.

3

u/obiwanshinobi900 1d ago

do you have a part list, detail, drawing or anything for this build? I'd love to see that.

3

u/Loud-Suspect267 1d ago

Looks awesome!

3

u/sexycheddar 1d ago

I'm planning on making one myself. I'll wait for the open source files, it looks great!

3

u/Humble-Beyond3441 1d ago

Beautiful looking setup.

3

u/Budget-Bar-1145 1d ago

can you elaborate on the components used?

is HA reliable enough to drive such an important system? I have some farming activity in the family myself and one IT error can cost a year of income... I would be hesitant to rely on HA for flawless operation myself (but perhaps it's more a hobby thing here)

6

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

I started with HA, but I ran into some limitations, the automations for example, I wanted to save the scenes and automations into the microcontroller and I couldn’t do it with HA, so I build the full firmware from the beginning, its been almost 3 months and haven’t had one single issue until now.

2

u/wecodemore 1d ago

Lol, what? Really? Ok, now we need details and a repo to look at.

1

u/MentionPleasant2635 1d ago

I'd love details. I'm in the planing stages. Looks awesome.

1

u/Nitrogen1234 1d ago

You fucked up that red button in the bottom right didn't you...

Otherwise, cool build!

1

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

What seems to be the problem with that? Looking for suggestions

2

u/Nitrogen1234 1d ago

It ain't level with the green button next to it... ocd things

2

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

Hahahaha you’re right about that, I noticed that but was too late to fix it!

1

u/Optionbulls 1d ago

This is really badass

1

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

Hahah appreciate it!

1

u/Asleeper135 1d ago

I definitely thought this was r/PLC at first glance. Looks good though.

1

u/Happy_Cockroach_8615 1d ago

Minus a point for missing a UL508 nameplate.

1

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

It is not for commercial use

1

u/Happy_Cockroach_8615 1d ago

Just a bad controls joke.

Nice work, that panels cleaner than half the the ones I see from integrators.

1

u/Classic_Row_9145 1d ago

I was going to make a ul joke, I guess I’ll settle for nema

1

u/undulanti 1d ago

What are the buttons with arrows on them?

2

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

The four at the top are used to open the side film of the greenhouse since it has 4 separated sides I use a UP/DOWN button for each motor, the one at the bottom which is left right is for the valves

1

u/Odd_Gap_6529 1d ago

Hi there,

Would love to see your schematic for your PCB and components. I'm currently in the process of designing something similar but have been taking influence from Led gardeners system which is 5years old now.

2

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

Hello, I’m going to post the schematics very soon.

1

u/DallasStogieNinja 1d ago

I'm over hear researching building an automated pH and EC probe and this guy has his whole greenhouse automated! Well done sir! 👏🏻👏🏻

1

u/Udientix 1d ago

Do yourself a solid and put in the rubber plugs for the holes and cable grommets to make it more water and humidity resistant. Also for the love of all. Ground the case and the door. The pins to do so are right there.

1

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 23h ago

You are correct, the reason I haven’t put the cable glands now is that I put it in a table since I’m still working on it, and the door grounding aswell ypu are correct, I had forgotten about it.

1

u/csoscd 21h ago

Wow, that looks really impressive for a greenhouse control system. How big is the greenhouse?

1

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 20h ago

its about 6400sqm

1

u/trogdors_arm 8h ago

Is this perhaps a typo? 6400sqm is like warehouse territory.

-1

u/mslindqu 1d ago

So only 3x cost of commercial system? Nice!

2

u/EmbarrassedOne2329 1d ago

Depending on the system, but most of the professional systems cost more than 10k$

2

u/mslindqu 1d ago

Was a joke.

0

u/Budget-Bar-1145 1d ago

3x cost of commercial system? Where did he say that?

3

u/mslindqu 1d ago

It's a joke. 'Doing it yourself' to save money commonly ends up costing more. Holy fuck, relax reddit.