Infamous Zero
Active Member
On my first grow and I immediately noticed while shopping for grow room supplies that quality timers/ heat controller/ ec and/or ppm and ph controllers are rather expensive if purchased separately.
Which brings me to my question; how many of you are taking care of all these controls with a programmable logic controller?
For less than 100 dollars I've built a fully programmable controller for light cycle, water cycle, and cooling ( via a relay operated fan). I don't have a large enough reservoir to attempt ppm/ph control, but it would be completely feesable without too much additional cost.
For those of you who are tech savy I'd suggest researching PLC's. The amount of money that can be saved is staggering, and one benefits of such a system includes customization and repeatability, the relays inside this particular controller are rated for over 1 million cycles. And I can fully customize my watering / lighting cycles down to 1 hundredth of a second, however unlikely it is that you would ever need that precision. I have programmed this controller to water less when lights are off, and to refuse operation of the ballast for 10 minutes after the lights have turned off in order to prevent damage to my bulbs caused by hot restarts. I have no fears about leaving this system running unmonitored for several days such as some people who have experienced failure with dial timers.
Just though I would share some information with those of you looking for another alternative to purchasing multiple, and sometimes incredibly expensive timers.
Cheers!
Which brings me to my question; how many of you are taking care of all these controls with a programmable logic controller?
For less than 100 dollars I've built a fully programmable controller for light cycle, water cycle, and cooling ( via a relay operated fan). I don't have a large enough reservoir to attempt ppm/ph control, but it would be completely feesable without too much additional cost.
For those of you who are tech savy I'd suggest researching PLC's. The amount of money that can be saved is staggering, and one benefits of such a system includes customization and repeatability, the relays inside this particular controller are rated for over 1 million cycles. And I can fully customize my watering / lighting cycles down to 1 hundredth of a second, however unlikely it is that you would ever need that precision. I have programmed this controller to water less when lights are off, and to refuse operation of the ballast for 10 minutes after the lights have turned off in order to prevent damage to my bulbs caused by hot restarts. I have no fears about leaving this system running unmonitored for several days such as some people who have experienced failure with dial timers.
Just though I would share some information with those of you looking for another alternative to purchasing multiple, and sometimes incredibly expensive timers.
Cheers!
