Harvest & Curing DIY automated Drying & Curing box
- Thread starter Rapha El
- Start date
You could probably get away with a small NUC to save some space!
I've gotten myself a raspberry pi with 4gig now, so far I've been using half a megabyte on the esp32s. With one of the mini distros this should work quite well for development. For later I am thinking about just hosting the base website on an external server on the web, so I can just put in the ip of the fridge and it establishes a connection for the live data.
While waiting for the pi, I've been busy; Deleted half the code(in a branch) and refactored the other half.
These are the only classes left now:
And they are looking nice. I also got rid of the statemachine functionality and am just running one update loop. Curing is a nice to have but drying is the focus now. Also gotten rid of the curves. I realized that it might not be very intuitive. Now you just define the temperature and the high/low vpd. So for example 18c and 0.8 and 1.0. What the controller will do, is linearly interpolate the dehumidifier power based on the current vpd in relation to the range set. So vpd of 1 would be 0% vpd of 0.8 would be 100%. That should come out to a drying time of 7 to 10 days.
This finer control is possible because I've gotten rid of the relays and am now using a L298 h bridge driver to power the thermocouple. This thing can handle enough power to supply both the dehumidifier and the cooler but for now I'm just wiring up the dehumidifier and leaving the cooling to the original fridge control.
My white widow is looking mighty harvestable and I am itching to try this new setup.
X2
Here it is, new and improved, the Kraut-O-Matic 2000! Muffins not included
It's difficult to see in the picture but the second row on the lcd displays the current vpd in kilopascal and the power output to the dehumidifier. Now I just have to "install" it in the fridge and hook up the rest, then I can give it a go. Bit late today, will probably to that tomorrow.
The raspberry pi has also arrived; So once this basic, barebones proof of concept has proven my ideas, I can pull the logging and webserver stuff back in and merge to main.
I think I'll make the website the main interface, to control the device. I just want a clean aesthetic, something you can put in your livingroom and not "stumble" across when looking around. Large glowy screens and lots of buttons just aren't it for me.
It's difficult to see in the picture but the second row on the lcd displays the current vpd in kilopascal and the power output to the dehumidifier. Now I just have to "install" it in the fridge and hook up the rest, then I can give it a go. Bit late today, will probably to that tomorrow.
The raspberry pi has also arrived; So once this basic, barebones proof of concept has proven my ideas, I can pull the logging and webserver stuff back in and merge to main.
I think I'll make the website the main interface, to control the device. I just want a clean aesthetic, something you can put in your livingroom and not "stumble" across when looking around. Large glowy screens and lots of buttons just aren't it for me.
With the dehumidifier running the fridge was not able to keep it's temperature so I added active cooling to the heatpipes of the fridge, seems to be enough. The vpd has been staying constant between 0.95 and 0.92, which is actually perfect. Will be interesting to see how it continues to behave with the added cooling.
I might actually have to think about getting the dehumidifier heat out of the case or think about some sort of membrane dehumidifier. Unfortunately the ones that can get 29ml/day out of the air already cost 170 bucks.
When the fridge has to work that hard against the added heat, it too starts being a dehumidifier because of the steep gradient. This is not ideal.
hmmmm
I might actually have to think about getting the dehumidifier heat out of the case or think about some sort of membrane dehumidifier. Unfortunately the ones that can get 29ml/day out of the air already cost 170 bucks.
When the fridge has to work that hard against the added heat, it too starts being a dehumidifier because of the steep gradient. This is not ideal.
hmmmm
Wonder if this is the primary reason the cannatrol needs to stay in a room below 74°F probably has similar issues.
oh yeah it's 28c in the room, don't have an ac.. could well be.
Yeah I keep my cannatrol in my walk in closet and that sits around 72-75. I've noticed during the hot parts of the day it struggles to keep up and will tick up to 68.3 instead of sitting right at 68 like usual.
One of the bigger complaints for me. I live in a tropical climate so it's usually warmer for me in the house, especially in summer. I'd take a broader temp range over a larger unit personally. For how expensive the unit is it should be able to be put it in a semi warm room.
Last edited:
