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Design Revisions

A project log for Project EDEN

Project EDEN is an open initiative to grow crops quickly, under near-optimal conditions with automated aeroponics habitats.

sadhanasadhana 07/19/2015 at 09:490 Comments

So last week my buddy Dakota and I talked more about the project. Dakota brought to my attention some issues going into drafting the project that needed further work. In this case it was mostly the root chamber and mounting it to the rest of the enclosure. Its now past 5am and mostly figured out, have a look?

I wanted the root chamber to be modular and to support the weight of the LED array in addition to several pounds of vegetation. What I am left with is about 5 feet of root chamber with 15 growing pods (the circles - to be coupled with an elbow and rockwool growing base). There is a capability for much more than this, but I don't want any canopies.

The windows between the pods will have removable magnetic PET plastic sheets to access the roots for harvesting, or to take a quick look at the root structure. The end result will be wrapped in a reflective barrier to prevent light from damaging the roots. I'm pretty satisfied with this root chamber because it can be easily be modified for more or less plants depending on their size.

More work must go into the structure of the enclosure. I must also address the heat the LED array is bound to produce, and there's a lot of power distribution stuff to think about.

I'll conclude this log with an updated partslist!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lPFTdldgs6HVyugyByvTj9iVUbvBaWwO2ivABECh8HU/edit?usp=sharing

It's just about finished, it has the correct pipe fittings and most of the equipment short of the temp/humidity stuff. I will add parts to the official components list as I build EDEN.

This week I am putting more thought into the programming as components will be coming in soon.

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