Build log: coffee container plant IoT — pt 2
Disclaimer: not a tutorial
I am aware that my writing is trash, and that people generally come to read things to take away from it/gain something eg. a tutorial teaches them something new. Maybe some tips/tricks saves them time. This is not that. This is if a pile of rocks on the side of a dumpster somehow gained consciousness after getting rained on with garbage juice for decades.
Also I’ll post my hardware projects on Hackaday going forward and I’ll probably build my own blog at some point. I know “you don’t have to”. But I like to, until I get pwned and my assets drained. (What assets you’re broke).
This mostly is a motivational problem project for me. I’ve not been “productive” lately. I find at the end of things I do I think “why did I make that? was it worth it?” etc… It seems things only have value when they make money, but of course not… happiness is value too right? A sense of achievement. Anyway… time to do something. I still have not eaten the Apples/started to germinate the seeds.
Finish stepper on/off function — Python code
This is just figuring out/fine tuning the number of steps to feed the stepper. The stepper won’t strip itself, I’m not sure if that means it’s built well or if it’s trash, anyway, I just need to manually calibrate it/get the steps down. Then these functions can be called by whatever eg. CRON script or thread/live call from a button, etc…
I am unfortunately losing interesting in this project, so I’m just going to get it done. I had this vision of having the plants on my desk but I did not realize the growth light is this off-putting alien purple color. I am curious how the camera will see it. Will I still see pretty green leaves? I also have an Avocado that’s been struggling to pop out its leaves, but it is still growing so I’ll stick that under these lights too.
I don’t know why I don’t want to eat these Apples, it’s not appetizing for some reason.
I got the steps worked out, I need some absolute way to guarantee knowing the last position… probably not possible but I will write to a file.
Well… I got lazy, just like F’ it, get it done. At this time Apple seeds not planted yet, need to eat them/germinate them.
Full demo
I swear something is bad about that purple light haha, I don’t know if I feel sick seeing it. You know when you get something really bright in your eyes and you see the after flashes even after you close your eyes. It’s like that. I don’t see that, I’m saying, seeing this light reminds me of that.
Build pics/testing
Next work is software
Just “software” stuff, the scheduling of the lamp, the basic website to show the pictures, automated pictures too. It’s cool having the camera, I can use that to tell if the lamp is on/off based on the purple color it sees haha.
Update
I did want to point out, you should check on your Raspberry Pi the current date so your timezone matches. Mine was set for Europe for some reason so I was a bit startled when my CRON job/lamp came on at 2:30 AM instead of 8:30 AM. Unfortunately the first day after that issue/did a timezone fix, the CRON job did not run so the lamp didn’t turn on… it was going to serve as an alarm as well. Will see how tomorrow goes. (Posted July 24)
