Sunday, December 20, 2015

Hydroponic Automation System Completed

Yesterday (Dec 20th 2015) I completed the full automation system (Rev 1.0) which now manages one of the two grow NFT beds.  It runs fully on Wattmon, my automation platform and monitors the following parameters:

  • Water Temperature
  • Ambient Temperature
  • TDS (Total Dissolved Solids)
  • pH
  • Water level (high/low)


It also has three dosing pumps:
Acid Pump
Injects Phosphoric acid to regulate the pH down (our water has a very high calcium content and tends to move to about 8.5 pH).  pH is regulated around 5.5-6
Nutrient A + B pumps
Whenever the TDS drops below 900 ppm (about 1.5 EC) it will inject a bit of concentrated nutrient solution from the stock tanks.

Water Solenoid
Whenever the water goes below the low probe it will switch on the solenoid and replenish the tank until the high probe mark.

The next (and final) thing I want to add is a flow meter to monitor the actual water consumption of the system at different times of the year.

5 liter cans of A and B solution with dosing pump.  Acid is in the can to the left.