Raspi-Grow

I had to step away from this project for a little because of real work.

I had a few minutes so now I'm keeping track of the highest and lowest recorded temps This should get me closer to actually graphing it out. 

I have a feeling it gets to cold in the tent. I wrote a python program to read the temperature inside the tent, compare it with the lowest previously recorded value and overwrite if current value is less than the previous value. 

At some point I'm going to expand on this and use a csv file with matplotlib to create graphs of this data. This should get me started and give me the information I need.

I'm using a cronjob to automate the task. Every 20 minutes it's running this check.

*/20 * * * * python /home/pi/Documents/code/grow_lib/lowest_temp.py

Current lowest temp recorded is 64.94 F. It has been going for a couple of hours.

I found a really nice inquirer clone for python. I think its funny python is now copying stuff from the javascript ecosystem. The little scripting language has certainly grown since Its humble beginnings. 

Inquirer is going to let me set up menus and prompts for the grow tools I'm creating. I've built a lot of system tools for myself and colleagues using inquirer and node. 

https://pypi.org/project/inquirer/

I've been using mobaXterm community edition to remotely access the pi and have become a huge fan of all the features it gives me. With the shell it also gives me a GUI to explore the folder tree and I just found out if I save a picture made from matplotliblibrary I can click and view it through mobaXterm - Really cool. 

https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ 

Awesome - I found a DHT22 laying around. The DHT22 is a more precise version of the DHT11 it will replace. Since this meant I needed to change the code I decided to do a refactor.

I hooked up the raspberry pi to a monitor mouse + keyboard for first time setup. I followed the steps on the adafruit setup guide for circuit playground and it set up a lot of what I needed it to.

Adafruit setup guide:

https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-raspberrypi-linux/installing-circuitpython-on-raspberry-pi

Things I had to set up:

• Do not login automatically as `pi`
• change host name from default `raspberrypi`
• reset password
• login to shell (I plan to use ssh mainly)

Future development:

• I want to get a camera set up in the room.
• I want to have a 24 hour graph made with current info. Each 24 hour period should be saved to a folder with its name as it's date.
• I want to use a capacitive moisture sensor from Adafruit to get soil moisture levels

• I want to hook up a pump and reservoir for automated watering

Important

I need to set up ventilation. Right now I open the tent when the lights are off. I'm looking at blower fans for around 70 dollars. I'd like to program the pi to work with a relay and turn the fan on for about 20 minutes then shut them off for an hour - and repeat.