Fanboy Builds a Greenhouse

[Pigskin Fanboy]

Good evening everyone

It’s been crazy busy here but progress is being made in several areas. I was able to get most of the solar system wiring, cleaned up and routed.

After around 2 1/2 days running on the one 12v battery, I woke up to the alarms going off and the charge controller was in voltage, off mode. My inverter also shut down.
I then went back to my extension cord and started doing what I should have done more of , from the start …. Research and Planning lol. I was surprised once I started punching in the numbers of the appliances I am trying to power into one of those solar calculator systems.
I added a 2nd battery to the system and temporarily have them in a storage box with a lid and I drilled some large ventilation holes in the sides.

I mounted the panels I have to the existing roof screws temporarily with some cheap strapping material, It has worked well enough to give me an idea of what angle I need to get the best sunlight exposure throughout the day.

Once I make a more suitable panel mount system we are either going to move the panels to the roof of our house or mount them on a pole in the yard. I need to keep the greenhouse roof surface clear for installing and removing the shade system. I have some “roll up” ideas I may implement here also.
It also has allowed me to realize I will most likely have to go to 2-100w panels and use these strictly for ventilation fans only. The one panel is only 30w and it’s designed as a trickle charger type setup for the batteries. Even with perfect sunny days I don’t think it could keep up, once you start doing the math on the entire system. I jumped in with both feet and now I’m playing catch-up lol.
This whole solar thing is completely new to me, so I’m learning a lot and still having fun and for me that’s what keeps me getting out of bed in the mornings.


Now the fun stuff….. I’ve been slowly moving plants in as I build shelving and decide on a layout. It’s changed several times but everything is screwed together so it’s fairly simple to adjust as needed.

There’s this one plant, I started inside in a GroBucket system. It was fairly large in my tent and I didn’t want to keep moving my light up so outside it went on Sunday. Overnight it had grown a couple inches more. It is blowing my mind and it made me make changes to the layout of the shelves because it was already touching the roof panels after 2 days in the greenhouse. Today is day #38 for it since sprout.
I had to build another bench system and dropped it down lower, in the below photos the 2 benches appear to be the same height but there’s about 8” difference and am now in the process of building another bench along that left, 8’ wall at the same level. The squash had to go back outside lol.
The bad thing about this tall plant is I have no clue what it is

One day I was at my desk and found a single seed sitting under the sliding table shelf and figured I’d see how it would do. No idea if it’s an auto or who the breeder is but it’s a beauty so far !!

I’ve added in some vegetables and moved 2 other plants out there today.

Things are really starting to come together and it’s actually starting to look and feel like someplace I’m going to enjoy spending time in, every day.

Upcoming “adjustments” that weren’t mentioned above :
I’ll be shortening the rain barrel height by about 12-18”, changing around the water pipe layout inside, adding in a 12v water pump and switch , adding in a 68” bench to the left (tall) wall in the above photo for taller plants. I’ll have a nice-wide area to walk down the center and a U-shaped bench system around the lower section of the greenhouse. I still need to decide on any shelving locations or overhead storage areas.
Thanks for hanging out and giving me a shoulder to cry on

 

[Pigskin Fanboy]

Hey y’all !!
Been crazy busy with trying to upgrade the solar panel and mounting system, I was at my wits end there for a few days and just had to back away and headed to the beach !! It was just what I needed to get back in Gear again.
Had the boys dig me a hole and set a 10’ 4x4 post in the ground. Concreted it in and let it set for 2 days. I then built a frame to mount the 2-100w solar panels and then realized there was no way one pole would hold the panel mount safely !! Not only that but it was not oriented properly to the angle I needed LOL.
I then had the boys dig another hole and set another post in concrete at the correct angle, 40” inches diagonally from the first. Decided to slightly notch both 4x4 posts for the crossbars to mount in. This fixed 2 issues for me, it gave the entire structure more strength and also corrected the angle problem
on the first post.
Both posts were sealed where they will be in the ground, hopefully this will last for many years to come.
Got the panels mounted to the two poles with 3 heavy duty hinges. Only have one screw in each at the moment until I work out all the kinks and get the wiring routed properly.
My original idea was to somehow make the entire panel mount rotate on the frame (was thinking of a boat seat base that rotates like a lazy Susan) but it just was too much for my feeble mind to figure out lol. So now it is only adjustable vertically and I’m sure this will be fine for what I need. Tomorrow I’ll be working on a solution for the vertical push bars that will be used to set the angles. The plan is to make several stopping points to coincide with where the sun path is at April, June, August and October. I’m thinking of making notches (or slots/holes) in the 2x4’s and just lift and set it in the notch that corresponds with the time of year. The weight will help hold it in place but I want to come up with some sort of locking pin type setup so it couldn’t possible jump out of the notch in high winds.
As y’all can tell I’m fully vested in this thing,
I’m probably over complicating everything and it’s been an expensive/exhausting process but I have high hopes that it will all fall into place soon !!
Here’s some photos of all the things discussed in this update.
The solar setup diagram that came with these bigger panels.

Mounting them both together in the center

The support brackets that came with the kit.

Mounted to the frame at 6 points

Back side view , all protruding screws were cut off and sanded smooth

Treating the 4x4 post for ground contact.

Braced the first pole to the building to let the concrete set. Temporarily running the rainwater away from the area

Starting to see some progress

Front side view

Playing around with a scrap 2x4 and trying to figure out the design and layout of the adjuster pole system to set the angle towards the sun/sky.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get all the wiring setup and routed properly, figure out what to use to set the proper angles and start testing the system out to see how long it will last on its own.
I’ve made some changes to the water collection system and hopefully can have that done by this weekend.
Thanks for hanging out with me on this journey !!!

 

[Pigskin Fanboy]

Howdy everyone

Been awhile since I was able to update this since I was sick for so long there. Before I got sick I was able to come up with semi-finished water collection system that I can live with for now. Obviously I will be taking it all down and draining it for winter. I’ll add in the 12v water pump before next spring but for now I just turn the valve on and collect in 5gal buckets.

I still want to paint the barrels black or insulate them with reflective material, like I did with my bubble buckets.
The guttering has a mesh cover over it, at the downspout hole inside the gutter there is a “pop-in” screen to keep debris out, the red funnel is mounted and sealed to the barrel and has a mesh screen mounted inside of it as well. Basically I have 3 layers of protection against debris getting into the barrels.
I wanted to match my runoff with my intake size so I went with a 3” PVC elbow mounted into the side of the last barrel through one of those EZ-Seal type grommets. It works very well and I am able to direct any runoff wherever I want in my yard now. Because the barrels had ridges molded into the top I had to lower the runoff hole more than I wanted so I will be adding a 3rd barrel to the system next spring
During most of the time since the last update the greenhouse became a “storage facility” and everything was just piled up in there to keep it out of the rain, waiting on me to get better.
Last week I finally was getting back on my feet and decided it was time to do something, not to mention the 37f forecasted overnight temperature kicked me into high gear lol.

Here’s what a mess was in there lol

I ended up talking my youngest into removing anything that wasn’t growing related to the garage. I then started moving all my outside plants into the greenhouse.

Removed the sunshade to let in as much sunlight as I could.

As you can see from this mornings photo it is very cold in Southwest Virginia.

We will be dressed up like Eskimo’s for tonight’s Varsity Football game lol
I have come to realize there is no way I could heat this greenhouse with the 2 100w panels through the winter, so I’ll try and come up with a plan to start using it from spring to fall next year. I’ll be able to monitor the temps and conditions through this winter and get a better idea if it’s even possible. We don’t get a lot of snow unless there’s some freak storm but this will also allow me to monitor the snow load capabilities of the roof. I’ll wire in a switch to the solar powered ventilation fan to turn it off, so it doesn’t pump all my warmer air out and draw in the cold air. Probably seal it up as best as possible for now.
Thank you all for following along with me on this journey. I’ll still be adding any updates here as they become available. Hopefully I can inspire someone else to give this a try and possibly stir up ideas to try out, from others questions and comments.

 

[Don't Fear the Reefer]

I hope you get back to full health soon. All the best.

 

[Talonxracer]

 

[Smoke em if you got em]

TIf I had a greenhouse like this I'd probably just bring a sleeping bag and pillow and just live with my plants in there. Very nice work!

 

[DCLXVI]

What a project you've turned this into! I hadn't looked in a while but that is a lot of progress. Nicely done.

If you're looking for more battery capacity, used electric car batteries can be broken down quite easily into individual cells and linked. They are usually the size of a laptop each. Several videos on youtube on how to do it. Even damaged packs can be used as there are usually salvageable cells. Most junkyards don't know what to do with them. You may have to search for one that specialized or at least advertises that they accept electric vehicles. The risk of fire is real with damaged batteries. I took a quick peek at a place near here and they had removed all batteries from the cars for safety and were in various states of dissassembly. Would have been cake to pick up a few and build a battery bank/wall. One of those projects for "next weekend" that never arrives. Hah.

 

[throwstuffatme]

@Pigskin Fanboy thanks for sharing your build, truly inspiring. I really appreciate the simplicity of your 12vSolar diagram. Awesome.

 

[leaff]

this is the best setup iv e ever seen, thanks for the info

 

[DCLXVI]

@Pigskin Fanboy - How have you been growfriend? Are you up and running with the greenhouse this year?