Custom Light Conditions for Plants
Mike Tarnowski Project
10/21/17
Plants from different parts of the world have different lighting requirements. My problem was that no individual timer could do what I wanted it to do. So I threw a PI at it. I'm a 60 year old noob with no programming experience since Commodore 64 Basic. I use a PI3 with SUNWAIT to set up 8 zones of light control. Each zone is a different latitude with separate Sunrise, Sunset, and Twilight times. MY zones vary from equatorial to cold temperate. Each controls a relay to turn lights on and off. The advantage is that you can mimic a plants natural photoperiod, year round. This encourages seasonal flowering and overall good happy plants. The photos show LEDs used as outputs in my prototype. I will be transferring the project to my PI Zero-W soon. Future enhancements will include temperature, humidity, and soil moisture control.