Hello every one I am new to this site and I like to sahre give a nic

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Solar air pump works with bateries to!

I cant wait to start my own windor farm!

God bless and have fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZeVb7DzUOE

Hello!

Me and a friend have been following the windowfarm movement for about a year and last summer we built a small six-bottle air-lift system to test it out. I’d like to start by appologizing for not giving enough back to the community but I intend to make amends with this and the next posts.

We really love the idea of growing our own vegetables and also like to build an develop stuff so we had a great time building and maintaing our small system. What we realized was that the windowfarm community in Sweden isn’t that flourishing and therefor we had difficulties in getting input on what materials to use and the quality of different nutrients.

That’s why we’ve set out to enlighten the Swedish people  on the wonders of windowfarming. We are proud to say that we’re going to build a giant windowfarm at Kulturhuset, the centre for culture in Stockholm. It will be exibited at ekoteket, Kulturhusets own ecological café and display-hall.

The system will actually be two systems to allow for a wide range of plants and consist of 80 bottle divided into ten columns. We’re going to post on this blog as regularly as we can during the build and throughout the exibition. It premiers on June 1 and will hang until June 30. We hope that all who can will come past and those that won’t make it enjoy our findings and posts on this blog and the videos we upload to our youtube channel.

Cheers!

/Daniel and Kristoffer

A couple of bottles from our prototype.

Our giant system:

We decided to go for the water-pump system to supply all of our 80 bottles with nutritious water. The reason for this was that we thought it to be more practical for a large scale system and that the airlift system we built before wasn’t that reliable. We also decided to make the one system into two parallel systems to allow for a wider range of vegetables since we can have different PH and EC levels in both systems.

The system will be 7 meters wide and aprox. 3.5 meters tall with 10 columns with 8 bottles in each column. It will be hanging in a large window on the third floor of Kulturhuset facing north o we will probably add som lighting to assist the plants growth.

Seedbox for our prototype. Chress, tomato and beans.

Prototyping:

Since we hadn’t built a water-pump system before we decided to build a prototype system in Kristoffers apartment. This system would function as the testing ground for different techniques and as a growing house for the plants that will be transplanted in to the big system.

The system consists of one long reservoir built out of plumbing pipes 10cm diameter and 2 meters long and one large square water container.  They hold aprox 20 liters of water each. We use a galley-pump that has a capacity of 17 l/min at hight of 5 meters.

Instead of a timer to control the pump we decided to use a floatation device in the top tank that would turn on the pump when the level became two low. This proved more difficult than we thought since neither me or Kristoffer are very skilled in installing electrical stuff but after a couple of tries and a few leaks we managed to build a system that worked. The trick was using a relay system that made sure the flotation device didn’t get to high current once the pump was on.

We added 6 columns with four bottles in each to start our farm. We’ve been growing a wide range of vegetables to try what works and what doesn’t. The ones having the most difficulties coping were the bigger plants that allready had fruits on them when we transplanted them into the system. The ones that we’ve grown from seeds in small seedhouses work fine and are realy thriving.

Transplanting peppers into the system.

Building our system:

We’ve just started building our system and what we’ve found out is that it’s a lot of work. 80 bottles is truly a giant windowfarm and the scale of all the differnt tasks that need to be done can sometimes be overwhelming.

We’ve added to video clips to our Youtube channel. One were Kristoffer shows all the different components ofthe system and one where he goes through the electrical components. More will follow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdpdb-ct_GE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W4m-p4Ut-E

/Daniel & Kristoffer

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no experience in electrical work, which the instructions in the 3.0 MAMA incorrectly assumes for those hanging lights. Granted, I had no experience with airpumps and plumbing, but those were very well explained. I just wish the electrical components also were explained so well (video  tutorial or careful diagrams). Furthermore, I could not find anything called a “pin socket” at Lowes.

So If you are like me and completely hopeless with electrical wiring, Here is an alternative.

1. Depending on how many plants you have, select that many extension cords, lights and sockets with plug-ins.

2. Plug the sockets into the ends of each extension cord and space them vertically as you please.

3. Tie off the slack of each extension cord and tie the cords together at intervals with lock ties (or string if you don’t have any lock ties on hand)

4. Guide the cords with hooks to keep them out of the way of the farm. (Because my farm is leaning against my fridge, I have the lights climbing up the fridge and then go through some rings on top of the fridge, which I keep in place with magnetic tape.)

5. Plug in all the extension cords into a circuit breaker. I actually only had three lights and I found a special outdoor plug that had three outlets, so I used that instead.

It is probably not the most efficient set up, but until I come up with something else, this will work splendidly!

So I have been mulling on how to get my grow lights to work. I definitely need some hanging growlights because I just don’t have the window space in my small condo (well I do, but that window NEVER gets any sun). I have stared at the directions for the pin sockets on the 3.0 Beta instructions, but I am still lost. I couldn’t even find anything on youtube to give me more information. So could someone give me the lighting for dummies instructions on how to make those cool hanging lights in the 3.0 MAMA instructions.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I found a simple outdoor timer with single outlet for $1 and some change . It only has 30 min intervals, but not bad for less than $2

I am about to experiment with the basic 3 plant model but live in the basement and have limited space. I would like to get as much light as possible but I am on a budget and its only 3 plants (for now). What would be the most cost effective way to provide my plants with enough light to be as fruitful as possible?

There’s been some interest in computer automation for WindowFarms so I thought I would post about this electronic kit.

I recently acquired one from work during an office move. It wasn’t be used for anything, so it was going to be tossed. Mine has been fitted with standard computer power cable ports, so I don’t have to do any wiring. (But I may replace the case on mine because its aluminum and I don’t like using conductive materials in AC devices – especially near another project that uses water…)

It has 8 AC relays and 4 input on it, so you can control a variety of items.

Software is limited, I have seen a few programs but they are not very intuitive. If I can find a use for this in my windowfarm I may work on some minor software development.

Control is pretty easy. You just send commands via serial port. It can be done with any terminal emulator.

PDF is here:

http://electronics123.net/amazon/datasheet/k108.pdf

For those of you familiar with the Arduino, this kit is apparently based on that design. Although the commands and programming ability is severely limited by comparison.

Kit ranges from $50-$100 depending on where you can pick it up. I’d only recommend it for serious electronic DIY junkies.

Sample product page:

http://www.electronickits.com/kit/complete/elec/ck1610.htm

So after some thinking, some scavenging, and a little tinkering, I have completed a portable WindowFarm I had previously mentioned on my blog (http://anuttahwindowfarm.blogspot.com/2010/12/some-thoughts.html).  I have simplified the design quite a bit, and the proportions have changed some.  It stands a little taller than I had planned, at around four feet.  And the base is substantially smaller, currently at about four inches (I may add a small wooden base to make it a little sturdier).  For more details on development you can check out my external blog: http://anuttahwindowfarm.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-portable-windowfarm.html

I had these large copper pipes left over from a previous project, they already had holes drilled in the elbow at the top, which I used for the suspension of the rope, as well as the top bottle.  The base has a screw fitting that attaches to a mounting bracket.  The airlift system is the same as my previous designs, for the sake of being an exemplar for presentations, I didn’t want to change the major component parts too much.  I used bottles that I had never used, or removed from other farms, and found that a half-length beer bottle, two full-length beer bottles, and a wine bottle reservoir fit nicely in the space I had.  And I thought up a far more convenient method of suspension than I have previously used.  This was likely inspired in part by Jenna Spevak’s plastic free farm suspension system (http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/05/05/plastic-free-window-farm/), though I use two sets of S hooks per bottle, so that each bottle could be easily removed, for planting, reservoir change, etc.  Along the same convenience principle, as well as to clean up the design, I ran the lift tube through the support tube.
This is how it all came out in the end:

The whole system, in functional set-up.

The entry of the lift tube through the support tube.

The basic construction for my first windowfarm is complete since  long. I made an effort to build an airlift. However I encountered some problems which brought me to the point where I decided to boycott the entire airlift concept. It just requires too much specific parts and is a hassle to setup and on top of that it is noisy. Instead I decided to go with a different kind of water-distribution system. The only real issue was finding a pump thats small and has enough pressure to push a water-column to about 4m (12-13ft) while remaining cheap.

I found the solution when I skimmed though my usual computer store, liquid-cooled computer systems! The pumps have excellent specs for this type of projects and the majority of them are submersible as well as being low voltage/wattage which means they can be used in constructing mobile DC-powered systems . The construction is identical to aquarium pumps with impellers so the buildup in nutrient salts shouldn’t pose a problem.

Prices however seems a bit steep since the cheaper brands land at >$45. Which is about the same as the air pumps I’ve found i might add. I plan on circumvent this issue by ordering in bulk from China which should leave me ahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWPLr0Selh8t about >$20/unit. Only issue being I would have to order about 500 units but I’m putting my hopes to free samples.

Also in the progress of building another ebb&flow like system with top drippers. But thats another thing, however it will use the same type of pump.

http://cgrantmccool.com

Using the following website with a quick, easy DIY solderless LED fixture as a guide, I set-up and made my own lights!  http://www.dabblings.net/subpage2.html

I’m no expert with electricity, but I understand enough and had enough research skills to pull off a modified version of the DIY set-up given in the site.  My LEDs were TopBright LEDs

I have since reworked this set-up to add a Red bulb to each fixture.  This was a bit tricky because the Red LEDs I was using required a separate circuit from the White/Blues which had the same electrical draws.  While each fixture’s Blue and White circuits are all self-contained in their own project enclosure, the red bulbs are also in series with each other from enclosure to enclosure.