Its finished! Mini greenhouse

[Kamipalms]

Heres a few pics to start with..

I've had this little project up and running for a few months now but I've just finished off the cooling side of things before the onslaught of summer realy kicks in.

What your looking at is a stainless steel insulated trough on a galvinised stand ( thanks to the Ag Department of WA)

A twin wall pollycarbonate "enclosure" sits on top , helping to create the "greenhouse" - the pollycarbonate was kindly donated from the company I use to work for. This is all held together with aluminium angle and sealed with silicone.

Heres a shot inside

The inside is lined with 4 inches of riversand with heating calbles wound through the sand. The cable shares the same thermostat that keeps temps under controll of the heat mat on the shelf underneath - this takes care of the heating side of things.

[Kamipalms]

Now for the cooling-

A mini version of an evaporative cooler

Made from storm water fittings found at the local hardware.

In the top pic you can see the white storm water pipe up the right hand side of the "enclosure"- this has a computer case cooling fan mounted half way up to push the cool air where it needs to go.

Heres where it comes out..

Sitting in front of the outlet is an ultrasonic mister which is operated by a timer. Within 5 mins the "enclosure" is completly full of mist , taking care of the humidity side of things.

There is also another computer case cooling fan at the top of the "enclosure" at the oppisate end to help draw the warm air out when the cooling cycle is running. This is also looked after by a thermostat . The whole cooling cycle is 12V DC - figured Ididn't want to play with 240V and water at the same time.

last photo..

Looks as though everything is working as it should.

My Sphagnum moss is even growing!

Jason.

[jam99]

Jason, excellent! I like the set up. Thanks for inspirations. Cheers, Jan

[Neofolis]

And Bo thought my germination setup was over the top.  He should love yours.

[iwan]

Great project Jason!

[Kris]

Dear Kamipalms  

i usually prefer only ready-made items for all my

requirements.but seeing your work i could not

control commenting on it.

it is fantastic,thoughtful on the 240 voltage issue,

simply superb man.iam a critic but unable to find faults

at-all.

i hope it will be inspritional for all palm seed germinators

throught the globe.it would include even me.

thanks for sharing your ideas.

love,

Kris(india).

[MattyB]

Nice craftsmanship Jason.

[tropicalb]

one word:

AWESOME!

[paulgila]

that flat-out RAWKS!!!

[Tyrone]

Jason, Your an absolute genius with that setup. From now on you will be known as Professor Jason.  

Very very impressive. I'll have to come over and have a good old look at it. I'm really intrigued by your ultrasonic mister. That's got my mind going now. How big can you get those things?

regards

Tyrone

[Trópico]

Two fronds up!

Jason formalized what will be known as Palm Engineering.

Now to the patent office!

[SubTropicRay]

Very nice Jason!  Good luck with it.

[Kamipalms]

Thanks guys...

(Tyrone @ Oct. 07 2006,08:07)

QUOTE

From now on you will be known as Professor Jason.  

I did prefer Jam's new name of   Dr Kami...

Tyrone,

My little mister puts out 250ml of mist per hour or you could get a big one likeTHIS

The small one like I have I bought off eBay. They normally retail for around the $90.00 mark from somewhere like bunnings . I paid $22.00 for mine and the seller is here in Perth. The same seller as the one in the link above.

The only problem with these ultrasonic misters is they need a constant water level above the ceramic disc and if the water level drops too far, the disc can become damaged and they don't work properly. I also bought a "floater" for the mister to sit in. The "floater" keeps the mister at the correct hight in relationship to water coverage over the sensor regardless of the water level...but there are other ways to overcome this...

J.

[Tyrone]

Thanks for that Jay. I took a look at it on Ebay and it looks impressive. However I've been spending too much on palms and the garden lately and the finance department is giving close scrutiny to anything I spend so I may have to pass on it, but the idea is firmly planted in my mind. Maybe later.

regards

Tyrone

[Trópico]

A few questions Dr Kami:

Why did you choose a thermostat outside of the controlled space (the heat mat outside)? Is the "cooling side" controlled by the same thermostat?

How are you taking care of the "lighting side of things"?

How are you controlling humidity, are you trying to achieve close to a 100%?

This elaborate setup, have you seen an improvement so far in the species that you're growing inside? Are some of those really picky on their temp/humidity requirements?

Thanks,

[Kamipalms]

Hey Frank!

I opted for the single thermostat cause I already had it and  I'm cheap!

Seriously, the thermostat's load rating was more than adequate to run both the cables and the mat at the same time. I had origionally run the cables with out a thermostat and the temp of the riversand was just about spot on when the weather was cold but now things are starting to warm up a bit , the temp became a bit higher than I prefered so I just plugged the cables into the thermostat to see wat sort of readings we ended up with.

I run the thermostat at around 20 to 25C , the medium in the germinating boxes on the mat warms up to around 29C and the riversand remains around 24C. Just a luckey break it works out that way.

The cooling cycle is looked after by a seperate probe type thermostat that senses air temperature rather than soil temp. This thermostat is  switchable to either operate heat or cooling device/s where as the other thermostat is for heating only.

Since I've had the "Kami Maker" -( as refered to in another thread ) up and running temperature ranges are very easy to control . So far I've managed to maintain a min temp of 18C to a max temp of 28C inside the Kami Maker. Although the weather hasn't really warmed up yet, temperature outside the Kami Maker has fallen to 7C and risen to 31C.

Lighting;

The Kami Maker lives inside my shed  underneath a couple of translucent roof sheets which is about right for what I need. Artifical lighting isn't used.

Humidity ;

The higher the better for my needs. As the Kami Maker is completly sealed (except for cooling ventilation) condensation build up is more than enough , to the point of not needing to water anything! The ultrasonic mister also adds to the humidity , which is looked after by an analog timer.

For what I'm growing this enviroment is exactly spot on and growth is absolutly flawless especially through winter. One Kammie in particular I was really struggling with ( C.scheryi) and I was fore-warned it is a difficult little bugger to keep in good condition.  C.scheryi comes from high altitude  Costa Rica and Panama and does suffer badly from low humidity and high temps. I've had these in the Kami Maker for a few months now and  growth and vigour has dramaticly improved.

Heres a pic- notice the older leaves?

I had some very good results from the original method of the covered pots on the heat mat and basically expanded from this into what you see now.

Dr Kami

[Tyrone]

They're great results Jay.

The results speak for themselves I think.

You should be able to grow high altitude cloud forest stuff with ease, at least while its small enough to fit into the Kami Maker, but as your dealing with Chamies that shouldn't be a problem. Ceroxylon parvum might prove difficult.  

My shadehouse/growth tunnel is about 6m long and I'm toying with the idea of running misters and an adjustable thermostat set to around 32C. The idea being that when the temp rises to 32C the humidity would have most likely dropped below 50%. At this point the themostat would turn the misters on until the temp fell below 32C again which would take about a minute of misting at which point I'd expect humidity to hit 70% approx. The idea behind this system is it's very simple and is totally self regulating without the need for a computer to run it.

regards

Tyrone