• Blog your pepper progress. The first image in your first post will be used to represent your Glog.

Third Time’s a Grow: The Path to Space Bucket Automation

Welcome to my Grow Log! This is my third attempt at growing hot peppers using a custom-made "space bucket". This setup is two 5-gallon buckets outfitted with two LED lights to create a controlled, efficient environment for plant growth. While my previous tries have taught me a lot about lighting, watering, and plant care, this time I’m aiming for success with a goal of eventually automating the entire system.

My first bucket looked like this:

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And although was really cool looking had some flaws. Most notably:
1. The light was terrible quality, and broke after a month or so.
2. The bucket itself was too short, and I think was too intense for the new plants.
3. I was terrible at growing peppers, and didn't understand how to water properly.

I then upgraded the bucket to something like this:
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With the changes being:
1. Another bucket flipped, and stacked on top of the first one.
2. A camera hole.
3. 2 Par-38 wide angle LEDs.

That bucket is my current setup. However, I was still terrible at growing the actual peppers. I've recently read a lot more on maintenance, feeding, watering, and what not, so this is now my third attempt at a pepper, and I'm happy to announce that so far so good!
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I also just set up my first version of my "automation". Not much is happening, but I have an ESP32 micro-controller with a capacity soil sensor that is reporting the moisture level. This morning I just finished building a little dashboard that I can view wherever I am. I plan on having a watering system that will, on either schedule, event, or manual trigger, activate a pump and do the feeding.
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I'm looking forward to updating with progress on the plant, the bucket, and the automation front!
 
Interesting setup! What type soil sensor are you using exactly?
 
@MarcV Just some cheap capacitative soil sensor. I got it from a wayintop 4 pack. I think it works okay. To be honest not 100% how accurate it is, but after I did some upper and lower bound readings I kinda know where its at.
 
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