How to Regulate Grow Room Electronics?
Indoor grower can harvest crops in the comfort of home throughout the year thanks to a controlled growing space, which is provided by a quality grow tent. However, without ensuring optimal conditions for cultivated plants using various electrical devices, the cultivation of herbs, fruit or vegetables would not make much sense. That is why you should read how to switch growing electronics on and off regularly. Automating these growing processes ultimately always saves both your time and your money.
Let us begin with an overview of the basic growing electronics that can be included in the automation of growing processes. These are mainly the following devices:
- Lighting
- Fans
- Heating
- Pumps
- Humidifiers and dehumidifiers
- Carbon dioxide generators
- Temperature, humidity and CO2 sensors
The above-mentioned growing electronics and other devices are used by indoor growers according to their needs and experience to easily achieve in the growing space the maintenance of the correct temperature, humidity, CO2 level, pH and EC. It is probably not difficult to guess that keeping all these values constantly under control would be almost unthinkable, and at the very least very difficult, without automation and regulation of key electrical devices when growing indoors, and not at all fun either. The correct values in the areas mentioned create an ideal environment for plant development together. This means that the following will improve significantly:
- photosynthesis
- water loss through the surface of plant leaves (transpiration)
- nutrient uptake
- growth, flowering and ripening, as well as other aspects important for healthy plant development.
Growers’ needs in terms of automation and regulation of growing electronics usually increase in line with ever greater experience and possibilities. At the beginning, you will need to control at least lighting so that plant cultivation is truly efficient in indoor.
- If you use classic discharge lamps for lighting in a grow tent or room, we recommend choosing distribution boxes straight away, which we will focus on in the next part of this article.
- For fluorescent tubes, CMH lamps, or LED lights, reliable timers will also serve well as a basic solution. They are also capable of ensuring regular irrigation in watering systems by switching the pump on and off. At the beginning or for hobby purposes, mechanical timers are often sufficient; they allow you to switch any electrical device on or off at the required time and are easy to set. The simple but reliable TBox Timer Box 1M best meets these parameters. In addition, the Spanish brand Tempobox also manufactures top-quality distribution boards, which we will cover a little further below. It is definitely worth reading the complete range in the separate article TBOX: a new product that pays off!
- A different league of switching - that is how we can, without exaggeration, call the second and interval timers from the renowned Dutch manufacturer TechGrow, which already allow easy and at the same time very precise setting of intervals for controlling a given electrical device, thanks to an extra-heavy relay with a capacity of up to 10 A. The technically advanced TechGrow time switches are equipped with a built-in light sensor, which makes growing herbs in a grow box considerably easier, because it gives you the choice of whether you want to use the timer only during the day or also at night.
Control units, distribution boards, controllers and other equipment for regulation
We are now getting to the regulation of growing electronics equipped with a contactor, which can handle a considerable inductive load, allowing growers in practice to reliably switch even a larger number of powerful appliances. This is also the fundamental difference compared with time switches. And as we have already mentioned, if you use high-pressure or sodium lamps as the source of artificial lighting for plants in a grow tent, then the safest choice is precisely control units or distribution boards, also known as switchboards.
Likewise, wherever one or two timers are sufficient at the beginning, the number of devices that need to be regulated and incorporated into the automation of growing processes usually increases with growing experience. Some switching distribution boards also offer, for example, a temperature sensor for fan regulation and other useful functions. Here we also begin to distinguish the boundary between where “ordinary” distribution boards end and sophisticated automatic control units begin, meeting the needs of experienced professionals as well.
For example, GSE Smart Grow Controller replaces a whole range of expensive devices, from light timers to heating controllers and fan controllers. This device is a well-known mainstay in the field of growing electronics regulation on the market. It is equipped with a temperature, humidity and light sensor.
The same applies to other GSE controllers and regulators, with which maintaining the ideal temperature, humidity or carbon dioxide level in the growing space is truly effortless. For a long time, these devices had practically no competition. That changed recently when products from a direct and more than worthy competitor entered the Czech market - the Dutch brand TechGrow, from which we have already introduced the time switches and, in terms of price in relation to performance and quality, we definitely also recommend other top-quality devices, such as regulators for temperature, humidity, negative pressure and minimum fan speed. The hysteresis regulator - the temperature range - is very useful, as it can regulate the fan output in such a way that the temperature inside the grow tent never exceeds the set temperature range. If the temperature inside the grow box were to fall, the fan speed would be reduced to the set minimum. With these high-tech innovations for regulating growing electronics, automating all growing processes is child’s play!
- Distribution boards:
- Sensors and probes for climate adjustment
- Generators and dispensers of CO2
Our TIP: We have prepared complete sets for CO2 dosing and measurement in the growing space for customers, divided into three variants so that all categories of growers can choose:
The modular control units GroLab are here to make sophisticated control over the growing environment available not only to commercial but also to enthusiastic home indoor growers! Take a look at the video directly from the manufacturer.
Automatic regulators are simply an indispensable helper for anyone who wants to achieve a rich harvest of the highest quality indoors. There are many reasons for ongoing optimisation of the growing environment. It is worth summarising the most important ones at the end:
- Ideal climate conditions in the grow box, from temperature and humidity through fresh air flow to the correct concentration of carbon dioxide, are a prerequisite for high yields and overall greater success in the process of indoor plant cultivation.
- Optimising these processes also means better management of water, fertilisers and electrical energy, and in the long term you will therefore save a considerable amount of money, which later allows you to move up another level again. As is well known, time is money. It is therefore also necessary to emphasise the significant saving of time.
- A perfectly managed environment in which your plants develop does not give pests or diseases many opportunities, so you can look forward to a healthy harvest of the highest quality without unnecessary complications that would spoil your enjoyment of growing.
As you can see, there are many options for optimising your grow room, and therefore you should choose mainly according to which devices and in what number you currently need to control and monitor. If you want to be sure of making the right choice, our specialists are available to you at the well-known e-mail address info@higarden.eu.
We also recommend these products:
- TBox distribution boards (TEMPOBOX)
- GSE Digital Temperature and min. extract speed regulator
- Prima Klima WHISPERBLOWER
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