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This sounds cool. I've been spending some spare time designing an outdoor solar pumped hydroponic waterflume system intended to connect to the top and bottom pa
by inflatableDodo 7y ago
This sounds cool. I've been spending some spare time designing an outdoor solar pumped hydroponic waterflume system intended to connect to the top and bottom panes of a residential window, that uses robotic gates between looping sections for growing leafy greens suspended in the flowing water by floating planters that progress slowly from the inlet at the top to the outlet at the bottom of the window as they progress from seedling to full plant. The design can also be disguised as a 'garden water-feature' in a range of styles from '70s sci-fi to minature Roman aquaduct.
edit - am intending to publish an open source git repo of the thing, should I get any further than my current mass of sketches.
- toper-centage 7y agoSo, like an extremely slow Lettuce printer?
- inflatableDodo 7y agoIt depends. How fast are lettuce printers, generally?
- abacadaba 7y agoWhat's your price range?
- inflatableDodo 7y ago200,000 - 250,000 kg, of 6 month lettuce futures.
- cwkoss 7y agoVery neat idea, I'd love to hear more about this. How would you control the position of plants within the flume? Personally, I've been pondering a solar-pumped hydroponic system which uses bell siphons under a big 'deer scarer' like off-balance tipping vessel to periodically flood-then-flush a number of sequential gravity-fed zones.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago>How would you control the position of plants within the flume? Turnstile gates that allow a plant to pass through with the flow of water into the next section. So the main power requirement is a pump to raise the water back to the top, the gates are very minor and the whole thing is achievable easily with a fairly modest solar panel and battery setup.
- cwkoss 7y agoCool, thanks. I recently found cheap (and weak) solar pumps on aliexpress. They can only pump up about 3ft when lit, would prefer something with better performance, will probably try some others. Been playing with the idea of making a passive solar system for filling a water tower from a rain barrel on the ground. Might need to find a bit beefier one. But maybe you'd be interested in these - no battery so it only runs when the sun is out. ex. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32893336462.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32893336462.html
- inflatableDodo 7y agoThanks :) Sounds ideal for my purposes, I don't need more than three foot.