
Space Buckets, a Community of DIY LED Gardeners - ekrof
http://www.spacebuckets.com
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dogma1138
Why the buckets? I grow tomatos, spices and onions in doors with just a
regular indoor pot and a natural light source AKA a window.

Giving plants light for longer duration does increase their growth (tho normal
LED's and house lamps aren't optimal for this, there are specialized
growlights that produce wavelengths that are more desirable for plants
Chlorophyll absorbs blue light the most which isn't emitted from most lights
that are used for indoor lighting which emit yellow, red, and infra-red light
the most), but for most growths a window will work just fine, even during the
winter time unless you are really upnorth.

So what's the deal with these? seems that if you would take those buckets and
use them as normal pots you will get pretty much the same thing with the
advantage of it being pretty and greening up the place to boot.

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pi-rat
Searching YouTube it seems most of these are used for growing cannabis - not
something you would normally put in your window (depending on local laws /
neighbors).

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IkmoIkmo
Yup. The site linked to even has a separate page called 'smell', with all
kinds of filter mechanisms. Definitely not to remove the smell of your
strawberry plants :p

Beyond that, the economics of vegetables and such prevent lighting like this
from being profitable. Consider that most people leave their grow lights on
for around 16 hours per day on a 100W setup that produces about 25 tomatoes a
month for example, which puts you at about 2.5kg which costs locally here
about $5. Now just the lights alone for 16 hours a day for a month would be
more than $7 on a 15c per kwh price.

The economics aren't bad, you can make it cost about the same as in the store,
a little less or a little more, the economics just aren't great and given
there's a whole bunch of time and effort, you'd only do this for fun, not to
save money. The exception is when growing a crop that isn't $2 per kg but $10
per gram which is pot, so it's no surprise that 9/10 guys probably use this to
grow weed. Besides there are much more fun systems around that can look
awesome in your house if you just want to grow some veggies mostly on the
power of the sun and merely supplemented by grow lights (for a few hours, in
certain stages, or in winter), all kinds of hydroponics stuff that's a lot of
fun as a DIY project to automate fully without hiding it all in a bucket.
There was a tiny hype some time ago (windowfarming n all), but most of the
urban farming is still soil based I find.

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dogma1138
I don't think anyone grows stuff out of economics if you live in a city the
cost of the soil, pots, seeds, and plant food alone make it highly
uneconomical.

There's just something satisfying about being able to grow something even if
it's unsustainable, I grow tomatoes and I probably buy more 50 times more
tomatoes per month (usually buy a small box of vine/cherry tomatoes for
nibbling every 1-2 days so that's about 8-10 pounds a week).

It's a hobby not homesteading, it's just a small ritual of having to move your
plants to the window each morning from the more warmer spot they've spent the
night in spraying some water on them while drinking your coffee and put some
fresh herbs and spring onions on your omelette for breakfast.

It's not economical it's just relaxing and enjoyable.

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BJBBB
Kudos for having an electrical safety page. But is not complete. Some of these
installations appear to be both fire and shock hazards. 1\. even for flame-
rated PC and ABS, the RTI is typically under 50C, so any long-term exposure to
LED heat is a fire hazard. 2\. unless the power supply is Class II
construction, the indicated wiring does not provide a reliable ground bond.
GFI will not always help, as it depends on which version of the NEC for the
building wiring. Best to choose a p/s certified IAW UL8750 (will bear the mark
of an NRTL and a reference number) that is rated for Class II ops (will have
the double insulation logo). If Class I construction required, never use wire
nuts for ground lead connections - use terminals and double-crimped
connectors. 3\. The power supply should be rated for end-use; that is, is
should not be a 'component power supply'. UL refers to end-use stuff as
'Listed', and components as 'recognized'. There are other terms for other
materials and eauipment, and the terms vary depending on the NRTL that issued
the certification (CSA, TUVR, MET, UL, etc). 4\. wiring 'styles' (UL has a
exhaustive database for this stuff) should be rated for the temperatures the
insulation is exposed to, and be rated for the voltage and current that would
be present during a fault condition. Recommend style 1015 wiring or better.
Most residential PVC wiring probably not suitable for all uses described on
these pages. 5\. EMI - most of the dimmiable units have poor EMC due to both
conduction and radiated emissions. And the demonstrated wiring will probably
exacerbate these emissions. Some power supplies that are rated as 'components'
depend on the end-use installation to meet radiated limits (47CFR15 subpart
B).

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fit2rule
Although this is clearly a cannabis-growers hobby, I think its pretty good
that a lot of innovation is coming from this scene that can be applied to
growers of other sustenance-providing plants .. would be good to see this
scale with some Moores' Law or so, as the years go by.

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andor
Hydroponic growing is done at scale, but usually in greenhouses. Using only
electrical light is too inefficient for regular foods, even with LEDs.

[https://www.google.de/maps/place/Almer%C3%ADa,+Spain/@36.753...](https://www.google.de/maps/place/Almer%C3%ADa,+Spain/@36.7530933,-2.7097443,31466m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0xd707601c35c6717:0xad1bf1bbb4e31675!6m1!1e1)

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adanto6840
Wow, that Google Earth link is pretty interesting, thank you for that.

I was curious & had to look this place up:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almer%C3%ADa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almer%C3%ADa)

There isn't a ton on the Wikipedia entry about their agriculture, though this
is the main excerpt:

 _"...spectacular economic growth due to tourism and intensive agriculture,
with crops grown year-round in massive invernaderos"_

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discardorama
How cost effective is this space-bucketry? Right now tomatoes are $3.99/lb at
WholeFoods. If I grew my own tomatoes, and my yield was, say, 5lbs, would the
cost of growing them (electricity, nutrients, etc.) come out to be less than
$20?

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ZoeZoeBee
Most people are growing something which is a little more expensive per pound
than $20

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afandian
Great idea! Reminds me a bit of the sous-vide following.

I've never disabled javascript on a site before, but the browsing experience
is greatly improved for doing so.

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pi-rat
Wow, that's just sad - after disabling javascript everything still works, just
faster and without annoying animations / cut-screens.

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ekrof
I'm working on that :) The site is a constant work in progress, like a bucket.

Without Javascript you disable AJAX, basically. Its a good thing that it still
works, but it needs to be faster overall.

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afandian
Like I said, it's really interesting to see all this stuff.

I'll be honest, the AJAX doesn't add anything for me. My ideal webpage has
zero movement except scrolling. Things which I would suggest you changed, if
you aksed me:

\- loading images as you scroll. Let the browser do that. I'm probably going
to look at all of them so I'd rather they load before I look rather than
waiting for them.

\- simulating a loading bar when my browser already has that

\- breaking standard keyboard shortcuts (space and shift-space don't work)

\- having headings that should be static move around on page load (that's a
CSS thing)

\- fading in and out on transitions

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ekrof
Thanks for the honest feedback! I appreciate it a lot.

I'm commited to AJAX for the site, I think it can work great after many
iterations and tunings. The site has over 50% of mobile traffic and tries to
feel like a webapp on those devices. It has been very interesting to see that
percentage grow.

Animations in CSS are pretty hard to get right, I see what you mean. I'm not a
fan of the fade either. I didn't know about the shortcuts, I'll definitely
look into that.

Cheers from Argentina!

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com2kid
On mobile the visuals are quite nice. :)

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pavel_lishin
Well, most of this isn't super accessible to beginners. I have no idea what
90% of that means:

 _This is my Space Bucket! I use 5M of 5050SMD LEDs and 4 CFL bulbs in a 4 way
adapter. I use a combination of topping and hardcore LST to shape the plant
and then specific defoliation to develop the canopy. Anything below the
lighting spacer is removed as well as anything blocking light to budsites.
When the plant reaches 40% of the planned height it gets flipped to flower._

[http://www.spacebuckets.com/u/bacon_flavored](http://www.spacebuckets.com/u/bacon_flavored)

Seems like a fun project, though. I wish that particular example included
total cost.

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thenomad
This is a problem with hydroponics as a whole.

As soon as you get out of the set-and-forget solutions like the Aerogarden,
there's very little in the way of introductory material out there. It's dive-
in-and-Google-all-the-TLAs time.

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owly
No bucket required. I purchased some LED grow lights from Amazon which were
super cheap and work great. They produce very little heat, are unobtrusive and
supplement my indoor plants for the winter.

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aaron695
Why I wonder is it better than a normal pot setup?

I guess, perhaps just because it's cool is reason enough.

Are people breeding dwarf varieties?

~~~
justifier
control

control temperature, atmosphere, light containment

