J GleyzesThe PVC pipe is an important part of this system. It is 100mm in diameter and 1 meter long, allowing 12 plants to be grown on a very small footprint.
Using the height allows us to optimise the number of feet per square meter.
This PVC pipe is essential for this project however the current PVC design can be improved.
Current design :
For each plant, this part must be printed.
It takes more than 1.5 hours of printing per piece, which makes 18 hours of printing for one tower. A lot of energy and plastic wasted.
Moreover this part gives a little too much horizontal angulation to the plants.
New design
PVC can be heated to make it take a particular shape. The idea comes from this youtube video.
I thermoformed the large PVC tube with a small 40mm diameter PVC pipe which allows me to cut small 1cm long sections and glue them inside to make a small rim for the baskets.
When I have some time I'll make a video of how to do it.
I then painted the PVC white to reduce the heat inside the tube on sunny days.
Discussions
Become a Hackaday.io Member
Create an account to leave a comment. Already have an account? Log In.
Instead of regular pipes, we can use yttarps.com PVC pipes. These pipes are strong and durable, which means our towers will be sturdier too. Plus, PVC pipes are easy to work with, so we can build our towers faster. But wait, there's more! We can also improve the design of our towers.
Are you sure? yes | no