KennethT

@Thanks for the Crepes - Actually, my wife loves and encourages it... she loves when I get my mad scientist thing going on... we're a little nutty...

You could make a "couples" tanning booth... it's roomy enough for 2!

The tent has arrived.... it's (ahem) a bit bigger than I expected.... it takes up more than half of my living/dining room. Funny how even after measuring with a ruler and mapping it out, things can be different in real life than in simulation....

Thanks for following along and your interest... I will be posting photos as I go along to show progress.... I hope my tent and light come in tomorrow (they're supposed to)... Depending on what time I get home from work will affect if I have time to start assembly immediately or in the next couple of days....

Interesting - does it have a noticeably different smell or flavor?

I am seriously considering a peltier based cooling system, but the more I look into it, the more skeptical I become of its cooling capacity. Only the smallest of wine fridges use a peltier device. I know for sure that mine is not - it is most decidedly compressor based. My fear is that the light, which produces 2200 BTU of heat constantly, for 18 hours, will overcome any peltier based cooling in that space. Then, at night, I'd like an inside temp of about 60degF, which is probably about 15degF less than the ambient. It seems that in order to get any decent cooling out of it, I'd need to run several in parallel, at which point, the power consumption would be way more than a small compressor based A/C. I think a small 10000BTU A/C would be ok in the tent as long as I turn it on and off with a few degrees of hysteresis - so the A/C can turn on when the inside temp gets to 80degF, and then turn off when it gets down to 75degF, and let it cycle that way. Couple that with the fact that the tent's night will not necessarily be night time in real life. This is because the ideal time to harvest is maybe up to an hour or two after sunrise - that is when you have the highest product weight. But I don't have time to do all the measurements and stuff I need to do first thing in the morning before going to work, so I was going to set "sunrise" to about 7PM or so, so I can come home from work around 7, do my measurements/harvest and then go on with my evening. So, my "nightime" temp of 60F would coincide with the hottest time of the day in my apartment, which, especially during summer, can be get quite hot, even with all of the A/C running.

@Shelby Thanks, but don't be silly! Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and from what I've seen over the years, you're incredible at a lot of things I wouldn't even think of trying! The stuff I do is strongly linked to my background - I was an electrical engineer in college, and I run a business that makes electrical products... so this stuff is fun for me... but incredibly boring to most others.

ha! I'd be surprised if I'm not already on it, since my lime tree has a big LED light over it (and it sits in the window) - it's so bright you can see it from the street - and I'm on the 21st floor! Also, I want quite a bit of air movement which will help evenly distribute the CO2 which wants to settle on the floor, plus it will keep the plants from getting an extremely humid microclimate around them which can be caused by the air being too still. I think the biggest problem indoor growers have is with the humidity being too high right around the plants. I'm now wondering if I can build my own peltier airconditioner using a sealed box with a few peltier devices mounted on it, a fan and an in and out duct. Plus, I can put a drain at the bottom of the box as it will collect water from condensation - maybe I should build the A/C out of a beer cooler? I was also thinking about building my nutrient chiller using a similar system - fill a beer cooler with water and pump that water through a few peltier cooling waterblocks... put a stainless steel coil of tubing (used in beer making) in the cold water and pump the nutrient fluid through it. That way, I don't have to worry about copper or aluminum of the water block leaching into my nutrient.

@dcarchWell, since this is going right in the middle of my living room, I'm not making my own tent, I'm using this: https://www.gorillagrowtent.com/products/gorilla-grow-tent-5-x-5 This tent is completely light proof, and I'll be sealing it as well as I can so that I don't have much air exchange between inside the tent and the ambient living room as I'm enriching the tent with CO2, and I'd rather not have it leaking out all the time. I have thought a lot about peltier devices to cool it, but I'm worried that they won't have enough cooling power, or I'd need tons of them which would be super expensive. They would be ideal as they would make sure I don't vent my tent atmosphere into the apartment as they don't move the air around. The problem is that the tent is roughly 175 cuft. and the light creates about 2200 BTU of heat while it's running, which is 18 hours a day. That's a lot of heat to remove with peltier junctions in a big space. So, I think I'm just going to use a dual hose 10KBTU portable airconditioner, turn it to its coldest setting, and then just turn it on and off with the controller with a couple degrees of hysteresis so I dont prematurely burn out the compressor. But before I get it, I was waiting until the tent and light arrives (Tuesday) so I can see how the temperature varies throughout the day first. But I think I'm going to use the A/C anyway since I want a pretty large diurnal difference - I'd like a nighttime temp in the low 60s and the day time temp around 75-80 (and don't want to met my apartment that cold at night!). I don't think I'll need a humidifier as the plants will create their own humidity fast enough - especially in an enclosed space - what I'm really going to need, I think, is dehumidification - which should be handled by the A/C... if it's not enough, I can build a desiccant based dehumidifier to help, but I don't think I'll need it.

Yes, Arduino... I have everything else on order... My tent is supposed to arrive on Tuesday, as will by Big Honkin' Light.... The first experiment will be to see how much the temp inside the tent increases due to the light. I have already calculated the BTU load, but I don't know how well insulated the tent is. But I am prepared to add an air conditioner which will both lower the humidity and keep the temp where I want. I have my CO2 tank at work - I'll have it filled at a local welding supply shop next week. I also already have the regulator and solenoid valve. Once I have the environmental controls set up and working, I'll add the reservoir pH and EC (fertilizer concentration) sensors, as well as the acid/base dispensing peristaltic pumps...

Spaceship garden 2.0 is starting to come together: This is the new garden controller with real time clock, temp and humidity sensor, and CO2 sensor to control CO2 enrichment.

Arrrgghhh!!! On Feb. 4, I got an email from them saying that my blade was "about to be shipped".... today, I got a new email saying that they've been flooded with requests and now they're estimating shipping my replacement in May!!!!

Thanks @sartoric for this! Did you/will you spend any time in Singapore? If so, can you share pics too?!?

I don't think the pan would make it 100% humidity... but at least it won't be 30% humidity which would be too dry...

I wonder if it would dry out, depending on how long you plan to hold it. Most commercial holding cabinets are enclosed and don't have fan blowing hot dry air over the food... Maybe putting a pan of warm water in teh bottom to add humidity would help with that?

@TdeVThe one I use, I bought in a restaurant supply store - I think it was meant for straining tea.

If it's a fine powder, I'd put it in a small, fine strainer. Tap the side to dispense... I use this all the time to dispense fine powders in small quantity - like a light dusting of flour, or finely ground sugar...

@sartoricI'm surprised to see people eating so much meat. I was under the impression that South Indian food was mainly vegetarian? Did you find this not to be the case?

Thanks @sartoric! I can't wait to see and read everything!

Looks great! Thank you!

Bumping up this topic: my wife just came back from Israel with a big bag of zaatar... Other than on flat bread or yogurt, how else can I use it?

I got a confirmation email shortly after submitting my claim - on 12/23... but have not yet received my replacement

3/4 HP!! Holy crap!

I used to do that when I wanted the Robuchon style potato puree (but I used about half the butter as the Rx dictated). It was a lot of work. A lot. I would take the riced potatoes and then dry them in a pan over low heat to remove any extra moisture, then I'd whip in the butter.... Take that paste and run it through a tamis a couple of times, then back into a pot over low heat and add back some of the potato cooking water to get to the proper consistency and season. A lot of work, and a lot of cleanup. But the results are fantastic. I actually learned the technique at a cooking class run by David Bouley about 10 years ago when he ran classes a few times a month at his test kitchen. It's great if you have a staff to do it and all the cleanup...

Since the windowsill garden is only a few inches from the window, on a sunny day, the plants can feel like it is over 90 degrees. In fact, even in winter, on a sunny day, we have to turn on the A/C otherwise the living room turns into an oven. I don't know about these particular rosemarys, but years ago, I used to grow rosemary and it did quite well. But I find that I almost never used it! I also used to grow oregano, but again, barely used it... so that the plants became huge, even when I would wind up throwing out or giving away the clippings since I got so much and used so little. I grew mint (a few varieties that I got from Wellsweep herb farm) in my windowsill garden, and you're right - it's invasive! The roots spread up and down the entire trough! I will actually be growing Vietnamese mint in the new garden, coming soon... That garden is going to be a hydroponic flood table, with separate containers to contain the roots from spreading to each other, since a few of the other herbs I grow do similar things as the mint.