You could try
http://www6.mailordercentral.com/igc....asp?dept=1022
(there are other pages there you might be interested in also),
http://www.greenzonecontrols.com/ used to be there but I can't find them
anymore. I'm sure there are others, but the first is a good starter.

"Ted Byers" wrote in message
.. .
Sensors and thermostats
helped instead of just timers (although timers would probably work just
fine
for a few weeks). I had an extra computer left over from upgrading my
wife's
which I could then program to control most of the sensors.

Where did you find these sensors, and exactly what were you measuring?
Finding suitable sensors has been, and continues to be, the most
problematic
part of my efforts to make a growth chamber.

I can not take a vacation since the only person who could conveniently
take
care of my plants is my sister, and she has such a black thumb she can
even
kill plastic plants. ;-) I DID manage to teach her daughter how to
keep
an african violet happy (though I help her out a bit when she's at school
or
in bed), but she is still too young to take on such a responsibility for
plants that cost just a wee bit more than her C$2 violet.

Cheers,

Ted

In article ink.net,
"Diana Kulaga" wrote:


Let's put it this way. At our society's show in March, as I watched people
leave with arms full of as many orchids they could carry, I remarked to a
friend that I'd never seen anyone go so quite so soft-headed over rose
bushes!



i think you need to meet more rosarians... (i actually saw 2 ppl
do this last weekend, over very expensive J&P roses yet. yikes. i
should have a yard that big... and they were *novices* at it too.)

(as to the original post--i went away for ten days and had my housemate
take care of the plants (orchids in the living room amaryllii in the
kitchen). i put a sticky note on each one saying "pls water me on
sunday" or whatever. everything looked great when i got back. this is
perhaps my best motivation for keeping the collections small and
non-delicate; i still want to be able to take vacations.

--j_a

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 May 2003 23:19:11 -0400, "Ted Byers"
wrote:

Automated horticulture is the solution.

Quite right.

I can envision a future in which each plant is tended by a solar
powered computerized system capable of sensing environmental
conditions and adjusting them to remain within preset bounds.
Irrigation, temperature, illumination, humidity, air movement,
nutrition, all independently manipulated optimally for each plant by
simple off-the-shelf technology available today.


Where can you find this kind of hardware off the shelf.

Thermostats and thermistors are readily available, as are photocells,
humidistats, fans. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of electronics
can cobble together a circuit that will sense the resistance between
two electrodes imbedded in the potting medium to sense moisture.
[snip]
If you can't find sensors available that are dedicated to the purpose
you need, construct your own from discrete parts.

But that is "the hard part". While I can get a computer to do literally
anything I want, just by writing a program to do it (I can even get a
computer to exhibit behaviours as complex as those of almost any animal; a
fact which raises countless interesting philosophical questions we probably
should avoid in this forum), I would likely be quite dangerous trying to put
together a circuit of any kind. Or maybe it is a question of simply never
having done it before. Do you know of any good reference books which would
show me how? I can read, and follow instructions accompanied by diagrams,
so maybe there is hope ...

The programming side is easy. And I can see the technology being
modular,
and therefore quite scalable from something small enough for a single
african violet to something large enough to handle the largest orchid
collection imaginable. I can even see a future in which such hardware is
connected to a relational database containing data documenting optimal
growing environments for each species/variety/grex/&c., at least given
common experience with the plants, so that all one need do is enter the
names of the plants being maintained and the computer will either tell
you
that it isn't possible to keep the named species together because the
best
environment for one will kill the other, or compute the best environment
to
keep all identified plants happy

What you describe is doable today.

Yes, I expected as much. Certainly the software involved is easy to
implement. While I expect the hardware required is available, my complete
lack of electrical engineering background puts me at a loss.


When the marketplace is willing to pay for such technology, the
products will appear. Until then, we'll have to develop our own
automated systems.

Yes, but I suspect that the development of a prototype or two will stimulate
both the early development of a market and the availability of more hardware
that could be used in our products.

Perhaps you'll find some useful information he
http://www.maxim-ic.com/appnotes10.c...category/ln/en


Thanks, I'll take a look.

Cheers,

Ted

"nanook" wrote in message
...

Use a search engine google, or my favorite, Copernic.
Look at the grow sites for hydroponics. (loads of info and parts in
the pot growers sites as well).

I have made a number of attempts, but usually found it an exercise in
frustration since either the components I found were serious overkill or I
didn't know what I was looking at (since I know nothing about electronics,
and the information was presented in a way that only someone wit an
electronics background has a hope to understand). And there was invariably
a problem with information overload, with a lot of hits referring to pages
that were either irrelevant or containing information I just didn't
understand.

As an example, I found myself at Honeywell's website, and while that site is
huge, and I believe they have some components that may be useful to me, on
most of their website I had no idea what I was looking at or how it might be
useful to me; and even when I do find something, if it is of research
calibre, it is both much too expensive and serious overkill for my purposes.
I do not need nearly the precision that is typical of devices used in a
research or industrial lab. I spoke to one vendor yesterday, at a trade
show, who could provide industrial calibre equipment, but he'd be charging
of the order of a few hundred dollars per device/sensor: which is
appropriate for a comercial greenhouse, but I'd need to be able to assemble
the entire suite of sensors and controllers for what he'd sell a single
device for.

I have been in the microfilm, camera,
processing and printing industry most of my life, so I have tested
many parts and sensors for reliability. I also am an electronic
hobbyist, so I build a lot of my own circuit boards for certain
applications. You can cannibalize cheap thermostats from home depot
for sensors.

Can you recommend a good book or two that would give me the background I'd
need to handle this particular project?

Try a couple of these places as well.

http://www.controlsupply.com/humidity.htm
http://www.greenair.com/product.htm
http://www.atlantishydroponics.com/index.html
http://www.fullbloomhydroponics.com/
http://www.greenbeam.com/home.stm
http://www.graybar.com
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/start.shtml


Thanks, I'll take a look.

Cheers,

Ted

"V_coerulea" wrote in message
...
You could try
http://www6.mailordercentral.com/igc....asp?dept=1022
(there are other pages there you might be interested in also),
http://www.greenzonecontrols.com/ used to be there but I can't find them
anymore. I'm sure there are others, but the first is a good starter.


Thanks, I'll take a look.

Cheers,

Ted

I've been read this thread and have to laugh.....

I built my home and greenhouse around my gardens and collection of orchids
so I wouldn't have to travel and take a vacation. I enjoy a short business
trip or a weekend vacation but I always look forward to getting home and
back to my plants.

Of course once I finish my orchid shopping on a trip I want to get home even
more to get them settled in their new home.

Good Growing,
Gene

"Diana Kulaga" wrote:


Let's put it this way. At our society's show in March, as I watched
people
leave with arms full of as many orchids they could carry, I remarked to
a
friend that I'd never seen anyone go so quite so soft-headed over rose
bushes!



i think you need to meet more rosarians... (i actually saw 2 ppl
do this last weekend, over very expensive J&P roses yet. yikes. i
should have a yard that big...

Rose people may just be worse than Orchid people with this.
Plus roses are much cheaper, on the whole, than orchids.
I mean, an expensive rose is around $25.
That's cheap for a nice 'chid. I on the other hand am a long time
orchid person with a rose habit going on 5 years.

One of my first contacts used Venger's to board her orchids. She was
quite satisfied.

Many of the first boarding facilities have fallen by the wayside; i.e.
Brech's Orchids in Newport Beach. People with large facilities would
probably love to board orchid; however, it is really a risk-taking
venture in that a stressed-out orchid might thrive under certain
conditions but not under other conditions. Sometimes raising orchids
reminds me of my son and his fish. Change the conditions and then the
fish die.

.. . . Pam
Everything Orchid Management System
http://www.pe.net/~profpam/page3.html
Free updates to purchasers of 03/25/02 and beyond. New version is
here!!!!

On Thu, 15 May 2003 00:16:07 -0400, "Ted Byers"
wrote:

While I can get a computer to do literally
anything I want, just by writing a program to do it

You can't get a computer to SUCCESSFULLY divide by zero. :-)

(I can even get a computer to exhibit behaviours as complex as those of almost
any animal; a fact which raises countless interesting philosophical questions we probably
should avoid in this forum),

That would be an interesting topic of discussion.

I would likely be quite dangerous trying to put together a circuit of any kind.

It's not as difficult as you fear.

Or maybe it is a question of simply never having done it before. Do you know
of any good reference books which would show me how?

These authors can make learning the fundamentals of electronic
circuits painless:

Don Lancaster
Cmos Cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

Forrest Mims
The Beginner's Handbook of Electronics
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...846201-3696862

I can read, and follow instructions accompanied by diagrams,
so maybe there is hope ...

You might also cultivate an amateur radio buddy as a consultant to
bounce your ideas/needs off of.

Radio Amateurs of Canada: http://www.rac.ca/

The American Radio Relay League: http://www.arrl.org/
The ARRL publishes The ARRL Handbook for Radio Amateurs which contains
basic electronics theory introductory chapters:
http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?item=1891

These folks are talented, and usually willing to assist with
interesting projects.

You can order small quantities of electronic parts from Digi-Key
Corporation:
http://www.digikey.com/
http://www.digikey.com/Scripts/US/DK...?KeyWordSearch

I'll cross-post this article to some of these newsgroups, and perhaps
we'll get some additional help in getting you started in electronic
circuit design:

sci.electronics.basics,sci.electronics.design,rec. radio.amateur.homebrew

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 15 May 2003 00:16:07 -0400, "Ted Byers"
wrote:

While I can get a computer to do literally
anything I want, just by writing a program to do it

You can't get a computer to SUCCESSFULLY divide by zero. :-)

Sure you can! The precise result is infinity. Floating point arithmetic
has two useful identities: INF and NaN. NaN is an acronym for not a number,
and is used whenever something realy bad happens: it just isn't useful in
this context. INF represents infinity, and, while most FPUs will throw an
exception with a divide by zero error, all one needs to do is catch and
clear the exception (on Windows done by the OS and converted into a
"structured exception"), and then set the result to INF. Of course, how
easy or painful this is depends on what language you're using. This is all
very simple, although it isn't very practical. That said, dividing by zero
is something I generally don't want to do. In fact, I generally try to
avoid it! In the software engineering I do, a divide by zero operation is
generally a consequence of structural instability of a system given the
parameters selected by the user. In such a case, it is best to test for a
denominator of zero, and, when such a condition occurs, stop the simulation
or analysis and notify the user about what has happened.

But I guess, in some respects, being able to get a computer to do anything I
want it to do is guaranteed by more than two dozen years experience working
with them, and thus knowing what they can and can't do, and thus
guaranteeing that I never want a computer to do what I know they can't do.
For example, I don't want to spend time making a computer that can speak
English, or any other natural language, because natural language is
multivocal (i.e. there are many examples of sentences that can have more
than one meaning - a common tool in humour), and computers can handle only
univocal languages. A computer can neither make nor understand a pun. Of
course, down the road, some genius may well be able to prove to me that what
I had thought was impossible is both possible and practical; but that is a
different question.

(I can even get a computer to exhibit behaviours as complex as those of
almost
any animal; a fact which raises countless interesting philosophical
questions we probably
should avoid in this forum),

That would be an interesting topic of discussion.

Indeed it is! I spent a large part of my second doctorate studying this
from different perspectives: philosophy, educational psychology, cognitive
science, software engineering, &c. But it is also a very difficult one and
an area where even experts seem to easily fall into error.

I would likely be quite dangerous trying to put together a circuit of any
kind.

It's not as difficult as you fear.

I hope you're right.

Or maybe it is a question of simply never having done it before. Do you
know
of any good reference books which would show me how?

These authors can make learning the fundamentals of electronic
circuits painless:

[snip]

I'll cross-post this article to some of these newsgroups, and perhaps
we'll get some additional help in getting you started in electronic
circuit design:

sci.electronics.basics,sci.electronics.design,rec. radio.amateur.homebrew

Terrific. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate this.

Cheers,

Ted

the more you guys talk about this the more i feel the urrrrrrrrrggggggggggg.
I Sorry dave, I cant do that dave.

HAL 9000
"Ted Byers" wrote in message
...

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 15 May 2003 00:16:07 -0400, "Ted Byers"
wrote:

While I can get a computer to do literally
anything I want, just by writing a program to do it

You can't get a computer to SUCCESSFULLY divide by zero. :-)

Sure you can! The precise result is infinity. Floating point arithmetic
has two useful identities: INF and NaN. NaN is an acronym for not a
number,
and is used whenever something realy bad happens: it just isn't useful in
this context. INF represents infinity, and, while most FPUs will throw an
exception with a divide by zero error, all one needs to do is catch and
clear the exception (on Windows done by the OS and converted into a
"structured exception"), and then set the result to INF. Of course, how
easy or painful this is depends on what language you're using. This is
all
very simple, although it isn't very practical. That said, dividing by
zero
is something I generally don't want to do. In fact, I generally try to
avoid it! In the software engineering I do, a divide by zero operation is
generally a consequence of structural instability of a system given the
parameters selected by the user. In such a case, it is best to test for a
denominator of zero, and, when such a condition occurs, stop the
simulation
or analysis and notify the user about what has happened.

But I guess, in some respects, being able to get a computer to do anything
I
want it to do is guaranteed by more than two dozen years experience
working
with them, and thus knowing what they can and can't do, and thus
guaranteeing that I never want a computer to do what I know they can't do.
For example, I don't want to spend time making a computer that can speak
English, or any other natural language, because natural language is
multivocal (i.e. there are many examples of sentences that can have more
than one meaning - a common tool in humour), and computers can handle only
univocal languages. A computer can neither make nor understand a pun. Of
course, down the road, some genius may well be able to prove to me that
what
I had thought was impossible is both possible and practical; but that is a
different question.

(I can even get a computer to exhibit behaviours as complex as those of
almost
any animal; a fact which raises countless interesting philosophical
questions we probably
should avoid in this forum),

That would be an interesting topic of discussion.

Indeed it is! I spent a large part of my second doctorate studying this
from different perspectives: philosophy, educational psychology, cognitive
science, software engineering, &c. But it is also a very difficult one
and
an area where even experts seem to easily fall into error.

I would likely be quite dangerous trying to put together a circuit of
any
kind.

It's not as difficult as you fear.

I hope you're right.

Or maybe it is a question of simply never having done it before. Do
you
know
of any good reference books which would show me how?

These authors can make learning the fundamentals of electronic
circuits painless:

[snip]

I'll cross-post this article to some of these newsgroups, and perhaps
we'll get some additional help in getting you started in electronic
circuit design:

sci.electronics.basics,sci.electronics.design,rec. radio.amateur.homebrew

Terrific. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate this.

Cheers,

Ted

On Mon, 19 May 2003 18:47:53 -0400, "Ted Byers"
wrote:

It's not as difficult as you fear.

I hope you're right.

It would appear that fully automated (indoor) greenhouses already
exist:
http://www.klimagro.com/products/products.html

Xref: kermit rec.gardens.orchids:45605


"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 19 May 2003 18:47:53 -0400, "Ted Byers"
wrote:

It's not as difficult as you fear.

I hope you're right.

It would appear that fully automated (indoor) greenhouses already
exist:
http://www.klimagro.com/products/products.html

Yes, I have visited this site before. But their products strike me as
rather small and ugly (but that may well be just a matter of taste). OTOH,
their existence suggests to me that I should be able to make a larger, much
more attractive unit for much less money.

But, on the downside, I was laid of recently, so I won't be able to do any
significant buying until I find a new position.

Cheers,

Ted

On Wed, 4 Jun 2003 11:01:09 -0400, "Ted Byers"
wrote:

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 19 May 2003 18:47:53 -0400, "Ted Byers"
wrote:

It's not as difficult as you fear.

I hope you're right.

It would appear that fully automated (indoor) greenhouses already
exist:
http://www.klimagro.com/products/products.html

Yes, I have visited this site before. But their products strike me as
rather small and ugly (but that may well be just a matter of taste). OTOH,
their existence suggests to me that I should be able to make a larger, much
more attractive unit for much less money.

I was thinking more along the lines of reverse engineering the
(temperature, humidity, irrigation, ...) sensors employed in their
products, and applying that knowledge toward your ends.

But, on the downside, I was laid of recently, so I won't be able to do any
significant buying until I find a new position.

With additional time on your hands, you may be able to devote more to
developing an automated orchid culture system. :-)

Best of luck in your job search. I would think, that a fellow with
your skills shouldn't have too much difficulty finding employment.