Modular Hydroponic Tower Garden

thingiverse

This is a modular low pressure aeroponic/hydroponic garden tower inspired by: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3405964 In order to avoid printing all components of the system I have designed parts around components that were available in the construction market, namely: - Drainage piping Y-segments made of HT-Polypropylene ( Ø110 / Ø75 mm, 45 °) - Large pot (35 cm, Material: Polyethylene, Height 45.6 cm, Diameter 35 cm, Volume 22 l) - Electronics for pump: NodeMCU (w/ WIFI connectivity), 5V mechanical relay, 5V regulator The 3D Printed parts are: - Reservoir_Cover_part: print 2x - Reservoir_Cover_part_refull: print 1x, with hole to allow easy re-fill - Reservoir_Cover_part_refill_cover: To cover the re-fill hole of the reservoir - Tower Tube distance holder: Water tube fixation inside tower ( i had 9 y-sections and used 3 of those) - Tower_water_distributor: to sprinkle the water evenly across the tower - Tower_water_distributor_mod2: glue or melt onto the "Tower_water_distributor" in order to have the water drops being guided into the tube and drop where you want them, I experienced that water surface tension to bring water droplets back together bellow the distributor hole and thus having a lot of water on very few spots in the tube - Tower_water_distributor_4way: connect to the pipe coming from the bump to evenly distribute water across the holes - parametric-net-pot_Stefan_V3: Net pots for the plants from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:790339 - Water_filter: (optional) can be plugged in front of the pump inside the reservoir to filter any large particles or roots. I put a cloth as filter material fixed with a rubber band. I have covered the entire tower with aluminium foil in order to reflect any sun from the plastic to avoid heating up the system and to avoid light from entering through the while pot (I should have chosen a black pot instead). If you do not do this your system will be much more susceptible to alge and potentially also root rot. The roots should not see any light at all and the temperature should remain under control with ideally temperatures somewhere between 18 - 22degC. Electronics: Simple purpose built electronics to operate the pump on a schedule using: - NodeMCU (ESP8266 allowing WIFI connectivity): https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32837163912.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4d6azEz1 - Mechanical relay 5V: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2053019063.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4d6azEz1 - 5V regulator - 12V power supply as input (not shown in picture) - 12V Pump: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32792939616.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4d6azEz1 Given the possibility to connect by WIFI through ESP8266 i have used the Blynk IoT cloud platform to be able to remote control the pump, making and cycle time programmable through the app.