What's new
  • Please note members who been with us for more than 10 years have been upgraded to "Veteran" status and will receive exclusive benefits. If you wish to find out more about this or support IcMag and get same benefits, check this thread here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

Diy steel hoop house.

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
I second the aircraft cable thing. I feel the rack and pinion thing is really for giant gutter connected greenhouses. Before I went automated it's what I did.
Here are some pictures of the stuff I use for automated black out as roll up sides.

This is the motor. The green and red knobs are how you adjust how many revolutions they make to roll up and down.
8f5d328d4f.jpg

8f5d2bbd63.jpg


This is what I use to connect the motor to the guide rail for when I use then for roll up side vents. Goes on the guide rail just like a hand crank would
8f5da53995.jpg


And this is a new controller I got from China. I haven't used it yet. I built my other "controllers". Thank God the instructions are in English. It has a remote which is pretty cool. Going to be interesting.
8f64827212.jpg
 

queequeg152

Active member
Veteran
the problem with wire coiling is always going to be fucking coiling mechanism.

i mean if you just look at all the problems people have with car winches... the little spindle thats supposed to coil the wire properly is always an issue.

that and your traditional tube steel poly tunnel is not exactly amenable to large tensile forces acting across these end walls. yes a purlin would resist that force somewhat, but you still will have bending stress in the end wall hoops unless you use guy wires on the exterior to balance that force... but then you are just creating a compression force down the hoop legs.

i just built a high tensile 2 wire( 300 lb.ft ea.) guy wired trellis for my toms in my back yard... in my non cohesive clay filled... HIGHLY PLASTIC soil it was a huge PITA... i had to basically cement stabilise the post base with like a 16" diameter x 12" deep plug of cement stabilized (5% portland in decomposed granite) mix to prevent the post from sinking down into the clay since its supporting like 400 lbs + another 80+ lbs of toms on a skinny 4x4 post cross section.

my point being it would complicate any reasonably large poly tunnel greenhouse to a great extent.

im looking at yubas guide tube drive mechanism thing though... and again im forced to conclude that you could easily use a pair of those to drive an aluminum tube back and forth... you would just need limit switches to prevent over travel etc.

the tube would probably need guide rollers or roller bearings every 6- 8 feet, but im sure a toothed rack would as well.

you could prevent issues arising from the rube rolling torsionally by simply using a pin retained bushing that is allowed to rotate freely such that the canopy supported by these bushings could remain aligned downward supporting the weight of the canopy.... no different than a shower curtain or window curtain really...only that the rings holding the vinyl curtain would retained at a fixed point on the shaft with cotter pins... set screws or what ever else.
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
Just putting finishing touches on the 12x40. Caulked and spray foamed all the cracks. Added corner screens for the roll up sides so seal the ends.
b9b664a3f6.jpg


Today we are going to get the 20x40 auto up and running for the year. I'll take a video of it opening and closing.

Next I'm going to get working on this 20x60 auto dep. My friend started to build it for me last year. I'm going to have to double check everything he did. Sometimes he rushes and makes mistakes. If the foundation stakes aren't square, I'm starting from scratch. The plants that are in the 12x40 veging will be flowered in the 20x60. The little one will feed the big one perpetually.
b9b3c07b6b.jpg
 
Yuba

I've built my dep the way you do and use same motors, works great!

I am going to be building more this summer and was planning on reverse engineering the controller. I found all the parts but was wondering where you found yours, the one in Chinese?
 

maxmurder

Member
Veteran
how funny I find this thread after I buy my bows in Oregon and my auto dep motors locally.

I just started using kings mix too- have you used it before?
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
Einstein lady: I have a wiring diagram for building a controler. I'll see if I can find it. Pretty simple and cheap! The Chinese one I bought works well. You are going to have to try to find it online. I got it from a wholesaler and had to place a large order. 24v timer and relay set up might be the best bet. I might place another large order for friends if enough of them need them. Building your own can be real cheap and not complicated. I'll get back to you with a diagram.

Maxx murderer: I like the Kings mix allot. It's basically a soil less medium. Doesn't have much for nutrients. It's great for liquid feeding. I will feed with every water hydro style to push growth. You could amend it though and do it more traditional. The texture is fantastic. Holds just the right amount of water. Has enough coco in it so it doesn't have the surface tension problems that more peat based soils have. It's better then 707.
 

dab7ten

New member
great thread. why do you use 200 pots and not raised beds. if you fill the raised beds with your medium seems like the plant would do better with no restrictions.
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
I don't use the 200s in greenhouses. Those 200 gallon pots were just some extra full season plants I threw out late last year. They will be gone once the greenhouse is complete. I'm doing 20 gallon bags of kings mix in it this next run. 20 gal bags give me a few advantages over beds. For one the idea with straight liquid feeding is to allow the roots to completely over take the pot and start to get A little root bound. I'm hoping to be able to liquid feed/water every day. The other reason is it will let me be more perpetual. I can veg in a smaller greenhouse and move the bags to the big greenhouse to flower. If I was doing beds I wouldn't be able to get as many cycles per season.
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
Marcbalogh: I get the motors in semi bulk direct from the manufacturer for my friends projects. I used to know of less expensive places to get them locally but they have raised their prices. Emerald kingdom, grizzly hill, karmens all have them but they are more $$. You are going to have to shop around.
The next time I order motors I will probably get extras in case some online people want them. And I'll build some extra controllers to sell. I just built some really cool smart controllers that I will start selling on Amazon. You can open and close your your black out, roll up sides check your humidity and temperature, run exhaust, heat or whatever other appliance from your smartphone from anywhere in the world. Either manually or on timers or thermostat. Uses an app called ewelink. And it's easily expandable to other appliances. All for less then any other dumb controller I know of.
 

Phaeton

Speed of Dark
Veteran
I clicked on this thread as I just took delivery of 40 each 1/2" by 10' conduit for an open tunnel greenhouse 13' x 30'. Plus all the hardware and plastic.
After reading through the thread I am glad I went small and open because due to snow load the entire structure will have to be dismantled at the end of the year. The fully enclosed design would be difficult to take apart, I was not really sure how difficult this would be until the pictures showed the build.

At 65 degrees north an open tunnel disperses the heat from 21 hour days and extends the fall growing by over two weeks.
Checking over your build sure is making my efforts less difficult, thank you.

PS: It is being filled with Super autos and large regular autos, no way to make it dark.
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
So I have been slacking on this thread and building that greenhouse. Just to much stuff to do. Picked up more outdoor property and deppo is really just icing on the cake for me. My bread and butter is outdo.
The 20x60 is packed packed. Should have flipped it a long time ago. I'm going to hack most of the foliage out and flip them. They are going to hit the plastic of I don't hack allot. I'm going to take some pics of putting the dep arms together. This time I'm using top rail for the rollers and top rail and 1" emt for telescoping arms. Hinges I'm using some bolts and Simpson braces.
dBD6JF
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
So this is the set up for the flat side auto Depp. The arms have to telescope. It's one pole sleeved inside a bigger one. No speciality parts but the motor. Everything else from home depot.
01ce2e18aa.jpg

01cabf1e5d.jpg


This is how out of control this greenhouse got. I should have flipped it a month ago but didn't have the time. I wish I could take plants out but they are already through the trellis. I'm chopping off allot of branches and doing allot of topping. They only have a couple get to stretch before they hit the roof. I need to re mount all my air movement fans. Peek is only around 11 feet. Normally the low roof is good because it saves on heat in cold months. My walkways between rows have disappeared so I had to hack the one showed out. Hand watering will be impossible on this run so I'm relying on drip. Got the netafim sprayer idea from speed of greens thread.
01ff1c8fb6.jpg
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
Decided to do a late greenhouse pull. Hoping for it to come down after outdoors due to limited drying space. Making some femanized seed crosses.
I'm running cherry pie, purple tangy, gg#4,

I'm also running, animal cookies, bluezz, blue dream, afgoo, sour patch kids, and a few other things for seeds.
Added more coco and perlite to recycled soilless mix. Trying earth juice sea blast instead of sea grow. Fed through dosatron like system.

Running lights between midnight and 5am. Only blacking out when lights are running currently.
0906172237.jpg
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
Chunky pigs: this is supposed to be about greenhouse building. Here is a couple though. I just noticed all the old greenhouse pictures got deleted. I'm going to go back over them tomorrow and try to replace what i can. Don't have any of the old pics but i will take New ones. Auto depp and heated veg greenhouse.
Most recent Cherry pie i have
0827172005.jpg
 
Last edited:
Top