Smart Solarpunk Greenhouse

The idea is a greenhouse that runs mostly on its own: solar in, food out, with a local model doing the slow decisions and a cheap microcontroller doing the fast ones. No cloud round-trips, no subscription, no phone required to keep the beggies alive.

I’m also going to experiment with producing as much of the hardware myself as I can using 3d printed TPU for tools like ebb/flow beds, etc.

Goals

• Produce all of my leafy greens and other veggies in this greenhouse
• Track and automate it as much as makes sense
• Continue producing starter plants for the Indigenous Solidarity Garden Project

Parts List

The Build

• The Greenhouse a cheap 5x5 transparent vinyl greenhouse.
• Aluminet shade cloth for plants that need it
• USB Solar Panel this one supports PD so it can produce a lot more power than the normal ones. This will likely be an experimental power source that I will iterate over.
• Cute solar fairy lights

Hydroponics

• Hydroponic planter system
• 1.5” rockwool
• Hydroponic nutrient solution
• USB water pump

I am going to be propotyping a TPU ebb/flow system which will initially be hydroponic and eventually aquaponic. I will be initially testing it with these super cheap tiny grow light beds to start some of the seeds for the larger hydroponics planter system.

• Small one
• Big one

The big one will also be used for tree cloning experiments since it can maintain higher humidity while preparing the clones for dutch buckets

• TPU filament

Reputable TPU is the essential filament to use for 3d printing safe equipment that doesn’t release toxic chemicals into your water, food, etc.

Soil Planting

For the Indigenous Solidarity Garden Project, I use these planters which are good at keeping the seeds humid while they get established, and then I can sticker them and give them to the Indigenous spiritual leaders.

Intelligence

• My Intelligence Backplane 3D Model
• Raspberry Pi
• heatsink/fan
• 5v5a PD Board The power the Pi wants isn’t possible directly with USB, so you need a board like this to convert it to the correct power the Pi wants.
• ESP 32-S3 boards
• Fisheye Camera
• Screen
• Relay boards
• USB-A socket cables
• Moisture sensors
• Temperature probes