if you're there and a plc has your atmospheric conditions dialed, and your lights on 12/12 you can spend more time with the plants watering, pruning and checking for bugs/mold. plus you can setup smoke sensor and overheating checks to keep from burning things. also (assuming you can do it well) if you build a whole system yourself with reputable industry-grade componets it will be less failure prone that cheapo, knock, uncalibratable, made in china, plastic hydro-store p.o.s. stuff.
i leave for trips a week or longer from time to time for work now so i'm planning on building up a plc setup pretty soon in my closet. i have my b.s. for mech eng and played around in the lab with analog and digital sensors a bit while i was at school, but i have a few questions before shelling out $200-500 on a controller, sensors and relays. i've read the whole thread* and saw someone uses an eaton, an allen bradey, a computer, an SL5/05 (or something like that)
1) any suggested plc's to work with (spec model) and if any can be programmed with block diagrams or ladder logic I'd be better off working with one of those to avoid the whole learning the syntax hurdle. although the eaton tech support sounded pretty killer.
1.5) and sensor recommendations too for temp, humidity, photocell, smoke
2) are there any compatibility issues between sensors and plcs to watch out for?
3) relay ratings appropriate for 600w digital lumatek ballast (the purple one)
4) what can I use to set up variable fan speed with say a "4 vortex or can fan
5) what are the datalogging capabilities of these things like? say tracking temp, hum for starters (also if it turned off for overheat or smoke to indicate why)
6) do the plcs handle multiple conditions at once or do they just keep looping through a list of checks/instructions
alright enough questions...friday night...tequila shots callin' out my name!
thanks bigbudballs, bloodshot420 and infamous zero for all the great info you guys have offered here on plcs!
and also thanks to lorenzo for the killer work on your software. and i'm sure with your drive you can find a killer job where you a) aren't setup to be played like a corp's little bitch and b) probably making more $ than before (granted there may be more than a few plants and multiple grow spots involve... haha)
later - indoTs
ps. if you'd like to see some of what i learned while i was at school in my late-night/weekend classes check out my thread on canna cabana. i forget the name but it's something like 'white widow 15 gal bucket 400w'. it was just a 1 plant show...but i have to show it off. my first real grow...that one had me
hooked from the start.
*i also read these ones and suggest them to anyone who found all of this helpful:
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/137251-anyone-here-controlling-your-grow-2.html
I'm not a programmer or computer geek nor do I want to learn to be a programmer or computer geek. I use photoshop but I could care less how adobe programmed it to do what it does. However, I do want to automate several large grows to do much of what you guys are piecing together.
