Mr.Sparkle’s Arduino Controlled 5 Gal Bucket Micro Grow 2017

Well I had some restless spring time building energy I had to put to use, so I built a 5 Gal “Space Bucket” Micro Grow done in my own style.

Here’s the quick details

It’s a 5 gal bucket lit up with three A19 style 8.5w soft white Philips bulbs, which were dismantled and mounted to different heatsinks specifically for height clearances, and to run a bit cooler.

It is also completely Arduino controlled and features automatic watering, which the code will be shared below.

It consumes 26-28 Watts of energy, and for me cost around $40 to make.

The plan will be to run one to a max of three plants and see what we can get out of it.

More in depth details and cost break down.

Everything used in this project is easily obtainable at your local big box hardware store, and or through eBay or similar Chinese goods site.

First we will start with the lights, I decided to go with store bought LED Screw in bulbs, 8.5w Philips A19 Soft White Bulbs to be exact, as they are really easy to get, their efficiency’s are quite high even compared to higher end COB’s such as Cree’s and Bridgelux’s, they come with their own ballasts, and they are super cheap even when comparing to lesser generic junk eBay cobs. Mine I dismantled and mounted to some old salvaged GPU Heatsinks specifically for height clearances, and to allow them to run cooler than stock, which will increase their longevity, not that it matters for $2 a bulb.

Here’s a link to a breakdown of a bulb I did for this build

8w Philips LED Light Teardown

Cooling and air circulation for the Bucket is done by one temperature controlled “thermocouple” PC Fan, specially an old Gelid Solutions silent TC 9 “92mm” I’ve had for years and used in other builds. For this build I cut down the fan housing just to make things a bit more compact and to scavenge air from the absolute top of the bucket, if mounting the full fan on the outside this isn’t needed, but I wanted to save a tiny bit of height, even though it’s unnecessary. The thermocouple is mounted to one of the heatsinks used for the LED’s which when lights are on, cause the fan to go up to full speed, and when they are off the fan scales back automatically to a lower speed because now the heatsink is cooler, this can be done with PWM fan’s like what I’ve used in my PC cases, but it’s just a simpler solution. Also the fan will exhaust through a carbon filter that has at least 2” of carbon depth to knock back smells that occur during full bloom.

Intake is handled by three passive intakes that equal just under double the area of the exhaust for ease of airflow. Now to go with that the use of the inner 2gal bucket is for two purposes, the first is to create a tray for the plants, but the second is to create a light trap, that is done by cutting the same size passive intakes on the 2gal bucket as the ones that are on the outside of the 5 gal bucket but offsetting them by 60 degrees, and the top inner seal that connects the slightly cut down 2gal bucket to the 5gal bucket is just a ring cut out of some foam board acquired at a local dollar store, and was glued in with a hot glue gun on both sides of the ring.

Light proofing apart from the light trap described above, is done first by scuffing/sanding the inside of both the 5gal bucket and 2 gal bucket, but also the outside of the 2 gal bucket, then those surfaces are painted black “Flat black is preferred” till no light can be seen when shining a light though the other side, after those are dried the inside surfaces that will be pointing towards the plant are painted with a pure flat white paint till it’s all one even coat which multiple coats will be needed, this is where you could use some mylar with some adhesive spray instead if desired, but some mylar is junk for reflectance. So when it’s all done the inside with be reflective and the area that makes the light trap will be painted black.

Electrical, if going simple this could all be done using pigtail light cleats attached to a power cord and non-dismantled bulbs taped to the outside of the bucket, with a wall mounted timer and hand watering, But were going Arduino controlled.

First lets deal with the main electrical needs and to make things clean, first I start with C14 Power socket that either has a switch attached or you attach one for ease of turning on and off everything while being plugged in, which makes things a lot easier, they can be sourced from old computer power supplies or electronics or bought new from places like eBay, after the switch this is wired out to a terminal strip where I connect two things, one is the 120v “for those in North America” or 220v outside of it, but that will feed the dismantled LED bulbs but first going through a relay, and the second will go out and feed your 12v power supply which will have another terminal strip on the 12v dc site to supply your fan with power, your DC-DC Buck converter that we will be using to supply the Arduino stuff with 5v, and your 12v valve if your using one which will run through your second relay.

The Arduino stuff is composed as follows, were using a Arduino Nano with a Micro USB connection, this is our brain, to it we have a RTC “Real Time Clock” connected using the serial input/output pins, also on the same Serial I/O pins we have our I2C LCD shield which is soldered to our LCD of choice, and our Temperature and Humidity Sensor of choice, which isn’t absolutely necessary but is a nice bonus. Also two digital I/O pins are connected to the two relay control lines, two other digital I/O pins are connected to our two momentary buttons, and one digital I/O pin is connected to our power pin of our soil sensor module, with readings being taken on an analog I/O pin, but I’ll explain this later.

Also all associated LED on the Arduino Parts have either been blacked out with paint or de-soldered for obvious light leak reasons, apart from the LCD.

Here is the code that I made for this, please credit and share as I have done here, as its meant for everyone to share, and isn’t for commercial purposes obviously.

https://github.com/MrSparkleCA/MrSparkle-ArduinoGrowController

The 2 relays will control two things, one will be for the power to your lights, and the second with be the power to your pump or valve, depending on your setup you will have to wire it to its according power sources.

The soil sensor and code took me a bit to get for longevity and error, so it’s a little trick but I’m sharing it so you avoid the errors and issues I went through, first what I’m doing with the I/O pin that feeds the VCC of the soil sensor, is making it so that the soil sensor is only ever turned on when we are taking a reading, The reason behind this is if we run power through the sensor continuously, we are in effect doing the same process that is used in electroplating materials, which causes rapid destruction of your anode side of the sensor, so it’s needed for longevity, I won’t go into the math but the sensors should last pretty much indefinitely. There is also a bit of sensor over run code that prevents watering events from happening when your soil sensor fails, which I learned the hard way.

As for the actual soil sensor probe I ended up making my own custom ones for longevity, but i used two pieces of stainless steel rod “RC axles off eBay” mounted to a non conductive separator and wired out, here’s a pic of what mine look like.



Now For control, I have very basic control, any updates such as light times or soil sensor set point changes you will need to re upload your code to the Arduino in order to change that, could those changes be done with a couple more buttons and a menu selection, definitely but I didn’t want to code that as I don’t particularly enjoy programming, and I know enough to get dirty but am nowhere near proficient, so if others would like to contribute this is where I think the first step should be.

My basic control is done by a 2 way momentary switch but can be achieved with two momentary buttons, and works like this, with one of the buttons if held down for longer than two seconds will turn on the soil sensor and display a live reading of your media of choice moisture value on the LCD, this helps with finding the optimum set point for when you want your watering event to occur, and or just checking things, and once that is found its pretty much hands off, the other button is used as a bypass switch for watering, so if your set point is a bit off and your notice your medium is a bit dry you can force a watering event for as long as that button is held down, now the actual length of time that is needed for the actual automated watering event you will have to figure out on your own, because everything from tube size, to valve/pump type, to whether your reservoir is below, above, or level with your pots come into play, but the code should have an overly safe level to start with.


Here’s a cost break down for those who are wondering.

5 Gal Bucket plus Lid $3.50 + $1.75
2 Gal Bucket $1.50
Foam Board $1
A19 60w equivalent bulbs “4 pack” $5-7

1 PC Fan 92- 120mm Free - $15
12v Power Supply at least 1A Free - $2

C14 Power Socket with Switch Free - $1.50
Wire Various Gauges Free - $4
Heat Shrink $1 - 2
Heatsink Material Free - $7
Momentary Buttons Free - $2
4 Pin Connector male and female Free - $2
Terminal Strip $1

Arduino Nano with Micro USB $3
LM2596 DC-DC Buck Converter $1
Arduino RTC $1
2 Channel Relay $1.25
16x2 LCD $2
LCD I2C Shield $1
Temp and Humidity Sensor $1.50 - $4

Arduino Soil Sensor module $1
Stainless Steel 2mm Rod “RC Axels” $2.50
Reservoir $2
Micro Pump $1.25
Tubing $2
Or
12v ½” Valve $3
Associated PVC pipe and fittings $5-10

Carbon filter materials and Carbon $5
2 Part Epoxy $2
Hot Glue Gun Glue Sticks $1
Black and Flat White Paint Free - $10
Or
Mylar Reflective Material $1 - 3


Total $40 - $100


My total was right around $40 so I put that as the base price but could be done cheaper with what you have on hand or access to.

So that I think pretty much covers it and we will discuss things further when questions arise, and were in the midst of growing.

So now on to the growing, this first round we will be running one autoflowering plant, due to how quick they flower and just running a single space, plus they are pretty darn good now a days, but we will use a 1.9-2 Liter fabric pot, its probably bigger than needed and may not have enough airflow around the edges to effectively root prune but we will see.

Media of choice will be some straight Canna Coco, and we will feed with GH MaxiGro and MaxiBloom through the grow at around an Max EC of 1.3 but will see how things run, and adjust accordingly.

As for the seed of choice, im going to be running a Ice Cool by Sweet Seeds, that i got through winning a photo comp on another forum back around christmas.


So on with the show here it is today, only thing left i have to do is make a carbon filter everything else is all hooked up.

swEEt Lill bucket bRo love the detail you put into all your grows

Nice, clean build. Congrats. Can u say more about the soil moisture sensor build and read? I used readers off ebay and they were good but failed fast from corrosion. I am interested in what you have done there, like how are the wires connected to the stainless steel and things like that.
Good luck, I will follow your thread.

Very clean build!
Interested to see the scrubber you came up with for the bucket.
Looking forward to seeing this first run!

exploziv said:

Nice, clean build. Congrats. Can u say more about the soil moisture sensor build and read? I used readers off ebay and they were good but failed fast from corrosion. I am interested in what you have done there, like how are the wires connected to the stainless steel and things like that.
Good luck, I will follow your thread.

Click to expand...

Yeah those plated sensors fail in a hurry, there are two way to increase the longevity, first is to only allow the probes to be powered when taking a reading, my code has a provisioning for that, as if you leave them powered its the same effect as electroplating and will kill your anode side quick, the second is to build a probe that can handle the rest such as my stainless steel ones.

For attachment of the wires to the stainless because of being dissimilar metals you cant really solder them, but what i do is crimp an indent ridge around the top of the stainless steel rod then wrap my wire at least two turns making sure its sorta snug in that ridge then i solder the wire loops together which also fills the ridge and space with solder, that makes it pretty solid, and could probably leave as is but then i still add some 5 min epoxy over the top to firmly hold everything in place, which by that point the wire will break before the probe and connections will, and so far i haven't had a probe fail, my oldest is going on a year+ and still looks the same as when i made it.


And thanks Panicmode and blynx

the carbon scrubber will probably just end up being a short 2-3" tall cylinder made out of sheet metal and mesh that will just sit on top with possible magnets to hold it securely in place like how my scrubbers are on my pc cases, just have to get around to doing it and deciding on how i want to make it refillable.

Very very cool Mr Sparkle. Thank for sharing.

Interesting, usefull and well documentated!! Thx Mr. Sparkle

Late to the party, as per usual...

We will say day 5, spent one day without much light, just ambient window light as i had a couple loose wire connections where i didn't have enough time to fix in the morning before heading to work. Things should start picking up speed now, plan will be to top the plant probably around its 3-4th node, with a possible second topping and lst after that, just to keep things short and have a level canopy.

I'd suggest moving the water hose output further from the plant stalk. It will result in a healthier plant. For accurate measurement i would move it in the same position as the moisture sensor (@ half distance from pot margin to the plant), but 90 degrees away from the sensor. And outlet should come to the side, not facing the plant. Other options would be putting drip outlets, 2-4 of them in a circle around the plant, with moisture sensor positioned half way between 2 drip outlets. Hope you understand my thoughts.

exploziv said:

I'd suggest moving the water hose output further from the plant stalk. It will result in a healthier plant. For accurate measurement i would move it in the same position as the moisture sensor (@ half distance from pot margin to the plant), but 90 degrees away from the sensor. And outlet should come to the side, not facing the plant. Other options would be putting drip outlets, 2-4 of them in a circle around the plant, with moisture sensor positioned half way between 2 drip outlets. Hope you understand my thoughts.

Click to expand...

yep i do, as it has the potential to wash away the mix right at the stack, and the outside edge is where the active roots are vs the center, i already trimmed back the hose a little bit so far, as it was doing that a bit, was gonna make a holder for the end of the hose to stick in the media so i could position it where ever, but haven't done so yet as its just another thing i would have to move whenever i would be taking out the inner bucket or disconnecting the reservoir, so i just might do the heat bend to set its shape, as for Dipper tips they aren't really needed imo as the pot is small enough that any watering will equally distribute in it no matter where its fed from, as for the sensor so long as it isn't directly where my water feed is there will be no issue, even still it would be fine, as it currently checks once every hr, not continuous, so the moisture would have time to equalize out before it checked again.

Thanks for stopping by btw

Subbed up, Will be following this closely. I still got half a space bucket I started, and with my recent trip into learning arduino, I have a renewed interest in doing something with this ol space bucket.

Also, for anyone interested, I will be making a breakout board/kindof modular PCB for Mr. Sparkles Automated growing system. Once I'm happy with the board, i'll see if Mr. Sparkle will toss up the board files on his Github so everyone that wants one can use the gerber files to order a board.

Here's my beta version 1.

Couple days later, and a little bigger

Hello Mr. Sparkle,I loved Your project! I would like to see a wiring diagram of the elements to arduino.

Bloober said:

Hello Mr. Sparkle,I loved Your project! I would like to see a wiring diagram of the elements to arduino.

Click to expand...

I can help you with this.


If it's hard to read, right click, save image and open it on your computer. Zoom in an stuff. Nevermind I guess it's pixelated as hell when you do that. i'll break it down for ya.

Arduino pins to Sensor pin:
A0 goes to A0 on the soil sensor.
D2/SDA is SDA on your I2C bus. Wire SDA of the RTC and LCD to this pin.
D3/SCL is SCL on your I2C bus Wire SCL of the RTC and LCD to this pin.
D6 goes to DATA on your DHT22
D7 and D8 Go to switches. (One side of switch wired to D7, other to ground, respectively)
D9 Goes to VCC on the Soil Sensor.
D14 and D15 are your two channels for your relay board.

And that's pretty much it for the arduino wiring.

Mr. Sparkle said:

Couple days later, and a little bigger

View Image

Click to expand...

Hey looking good.

I love the 2 gallon sat down inside with the foam shelf. I'm gonna hafta borrow that idea.

Could we get a shot from the outside with the lights on in a dark room? I'm curious how much this bad boy glows.

@ Bloober, jelly more or less got it with his wiring digram, but all the arduino stuff can be changed for the input/outputs those were just the ones i picked.

As for an outside shot in the dark, ill work on that but wont be anytime soon as i still have a bit of light proofing and a carbon filter to make, as right now the light spilling out the top definitely isn't stealthy, but its located in a closet so i haven't been concerned.

Actually the LCD on the side i might remove the led jumper on it as that lights up the space more than any light that has escaped, and the little light proofing fixes i have are due to components breaking the hot glue bond off the bucket and taking the paint with them, but being re-glued back down but not exactly so light can then travel through those gaps. Would of been less an issue if i used plastic paint instead, and better glue, but live and learn, i also have some filter material that if i add to the air holes in the 2 gal bucket, will pretty much stop any extra stray light that may bounce through.

But really a humming bucket that has an electrical plug, switches and lcd and some holes in it isn't necessary stealthy, but definitely more so that pretty much ever other space bucket ive seen.