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• Conclude the past

  Benny Cheung • 12/14/2019 at 12:11 • 0 comments

  It been a month from my last log, I should update the project more frequently. Working in full-time is tough enough which makes me very hard to find time to balance my work and this project. Nevertheless, I still want to report what we learn from last year. 

  The picture we show on the page is the prototype from last year. We toke a very huge step to build a rack prototype for "industrial" scale. Although the number of plant head may reach the standard, the build quality definite not. Here are the problems:

  • Planter water leakage problem with NFT technology
    • End cap cannot secure well to be water proof
  • LED not water proof
  • Wires everywhere without proper planning
  • Algae buildup without proper management

  Those problem keep us from fixing problem instead of developing something useful. As our project period end (end of semester), we abandon the previous prototype and pause the development  to rethink the next step. 

  Here we come to today and a smaller scale prototype are being develop. Hope I can have more time in Christmas and work on both prototype and log to catch up with this project.  

• Starting from Scratch

  Benny Cheung • 11/16/2019 at 15:31 • 0 comments

  It's been a while for updating our system progress. As graduating from college and working full time as an electrical engineer, our team has less time working on the system and only able to develop the system as hobby. Our demo system during one year of operation and maintenance also encounter multiple major break point which led to a redesign of system is needed (more on that story later). Currently, we are working on a smaller system which is easier to maintain and rapid prototype. Stay tune on upcoming log and hope the small scale prototype work as charm.

• Choose right system

  Benny Cheung • 06/13/2018 at 07:36 • 0 comments

  Hydroponics means planting with water instead of soil. There are several system available for use and most of them do have their advantage and disadvantage, Is the update, let's discuss more about the different type of system and choose one to move on for this project.

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• Starting from the beginning

  Benny Cheung • 06/13/2018 at 06:10 • 0 comments

  Nowadays, there's a lot of hydroponics system available in the market. With the development in technologies and increase in human laziness, such system getting more available and popular. However, current system still suffer from quite a few problems. In this update, I would like to use MIT OpneAG Personal Food Computer as a basis and discuss some of the disadvantage of such system. I would also suggest some directions to improve on existing architectures and setup an experimental testing unit in Hong Kong. 

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