Cabinet for growing grass. Do-it-yourself growbox for growing greens and seedlings - photos and diagrams. What is a growbox

Surely many who wanted to start indoor crop production were interested in the question of where to start. Well, the logical answer came to the fact that it was necessary to equip a place for growing. For this purpose, a special or simple cabinet is required, equipped with a non-tricky arsenal. This is necessary in order to create ideal growing conditions for the plant. But we will try to answer the following questions, such as size, lamp power and ventilation in this article, perhaps this will help those who decideassemble with your own hands or simply cannot decide on the choice of model.

First of all, you need to know how big the plants will be grown. Well, there's nothing tricky here. It is enough to understand the height of the green friend in its final stage, add the height of the pot and the space occupied by the lamp. Often a height of 120-150 cm is enough for most species. Well, if this is not enough, no one forbids bending actively stretching plants. With this method, you can most effectively fill the precious area. And do not forget, the closer our impromptu sun is to the plant, the less it will reach for it, without losing in the green mass. Be careful when the crown and the lamp are closer to each other than 10 cm. Burning the top threatens to stop growth in this place.

Having learned from a simple formula the area of ​​\u200b\u200bour future box, we can easily determine the required light power from this table.

power HPS/MGL	power CFL	power ESL	power LED	square boxing see	square box m²	boxing area in feet
70W	80W	100W	45W	30x30cm	0.09m²	1x1 foot
100W	110W	150W	70W	40x40cm	0.16m²	1.3x1.3 feet
150W	200W	250W	115W	50x50cm	0.25m²	1.7 x 1.7 feet
250W	330W	400W	180W	60x60cm	0.35m²	2x2 feet
400W				90x90cm	0.80m²	3x3 feet

In order for the streams of light to be evenly scattered and promote active photosynthesis, take care of a good reflective coating of the box. Some use penofol or foil tape, but these materials are not as effective as they might seem. The fact is that the above coatings do not reflect light evenly. Thus, at some points there is not enough light, and at some points micro burns are formed. The most suitable reflective coating is white paint with a deep matte finish. It reflects the light as evenly as possible, and favorably affects the well-being of the vegetative plant.

The next step, when using HPS, is to choose a luminaire with the ability to cool the lamp. The most widely used today are kultub and kulmaster. Let's take it in order.

This is a glass ceiling in the form, as the name implies, of a pipe, inside of which the lamp is located. This miracle is connected to ventilation, which quickly draws out all the heat. If you make the air flow into the lamp from the outside, you get a closed ventilation system. This will significantly reduce the temperature in the grow box. True, the presence of such a system will force you to install another fan for circulation and air renewal in the box itself. This is necessary to avoid mold, fungi, and to improve the microclimate in general.

It is a trapezoid lamp. Has through openings for the organization of active ventilation. Best suited for large boxes. Just like the kultub, it has fasteners for suspension and height adjustment. The possibility of creating a closed cooling system has also not been canceled.

There are no fundamental differences between them, so the choice depends purely on individual preferences. If ESL, CFL or LED lamps are used as the main light source, a simple reflector (reflector) may be sufficient, since lamps of this type heat up much less.

Further on our list will appear. The main fan power parameter is the amount of air pumped per hour. Ideally, the air in the box should be completely changed every 3 minutes. The best way to remove hot air is duct fans. For general air circulation, a simple household fan is perfect. As we all know, hot air rises, so the air outlet should be as high as possible. Also, when choosing the main enemy of silence, pay attention to the volume indicator. The norm will be an indicator from 20 to 40 dB. Anything louder can have a bad effect on the safety of nerve cells and peace of mind.

And finally, it will be important to mention the quality of the electrical connections. To avoid fire, use special terminal blocks, screw terminals, or soldering. Take care of high-quality insulation of nodes and connections. Refrain from using twists and similar unreliable connection methods. Remember that safety is above all.

Many people dream of having their own vegetables and fruits all year round. An excellent tool for this is the growbox. What is it and what are the main points of working with it further.

Growbox or is a professional equipment that helps to grow seedlings and indoor flowers. It also allows you to create a pleasant microclimate for plants and do everything so that the environmental conditions are favorable. It's great for a variety of purposes. It can freely grow a variety of fruit and vegetable crops.

A grow box is a great replacement for many things, such as a conservatory, a country house or a greenhouse, because it takes up little space. It is located within the apartment and can help pass the long, winter evenings.

Classification

Today there is a whole classification of these devices:

1. Standard. It is distinguished by its optimal dimensions. They are defined as 1000×1000×2000 mm. Such dimensions will help the young gardener to easily place a pair of mature photoperiod plants that will not interfere with each other's growth during their active flowering.
2. Stealth. It is the most difficult and interesting type of growbox, hidden and inconspicuous. It has a lot of advantages, for example, isolation of noise and light.
3. Groocompact. It has small dimensions, which is why it is placed in an ordinary room. This is a great option for those who need to grow small flowers.

Interesting! You can make a small grow box out of the fridge.

There are many offers on the market. However, today you can create a growbox with your own hands. The main task is to provide acceptable conditions for growing plants. When designing begins, you can apply the advice of experts or go your own way.

For the manufacture of this equipment, you will need things and tools in the form of:

1. Cabinet, box or chipboard box;
2. Films with foil or other material;
3. Thermometer and hygrometer for measuring temperature with humidity;
4. , lamp or other lighting device;
5. Pots, boxes, containers where plants will be kept.

1. Project. We prepare a drawing of a grow box, a diagram or a color project on a computer with how it will look;
2. Purchase of all material and storing it in one place.
3. Growbox formations. Schemes for construction can be found ready-made on the Internet. For example, you can use this:

Lighting

Many are mistaken in thinking that any lamps are suitable for lighting a grow box. To grow a certain plant, a certain light and temperature is required. The fact is that incandescent lamps, for example, emit additional heat and have a strong glow. This can kill some flowers when exposed directly to the lamp.

Types of suitable grow box lamps:

1. DNAt are sodium lamps, which are required to provide supplementary lighting to plants or light up streets;
2. CFL are considered medium-sized fluorescent lighting devices;
3. ESL in translation - lamps that save electricity;
4. 4 Led have special LED properties for enhanced plant growth.

Ventilation must be, there are no restrictions on the choice. The main thing is that the chosen system helps to renew the air inside it and get rid of the hot air emitted by the lamp. If you use the advice of agronomists, you can come to a single decision about the temperature. For all plants, it should be from +22 to +27 0 С.

You can create the correct operation of ventilation and all equipment if you use things in the form of an electronic timer or relay. This is optional equipment, but it makes life much easier. The timer turns on and off for lighting along with the fan device in the box. At the time of development or vegetation, you need to know that at this time all flowers need to be given light until eighteen hours during the day and six hours at night. When it becomes an adult and enters into flowering, the pre-light can be set to twelve hours in the daytime and the same number of hours at night.

How to make a charcoal filter for your grow box

They are used to get rid of the unstable basic synthesis that accumulates in space. That is, getting rid of the bad smell. They help, in addition, to purify the air of dust, which is harmful to everyone.

Today, there are many schemes for creating a carbon filter with your own hands. A lot of useful material is contained in the video tutorial:

Compliance with the temperature regime

What temperature should the grow box be? Everyone loves stability, including plants. Make sure that the temperature set for their growth always remains the same. Remember that lamps heat the air very much. In addition, they can burn the leaves and then they will dry out faster. Use blowers and carbon filters.

If you need to lower the temperature by 1-2C, use a humidifier, but do not get carried away with this, since the humidity cannot exceed 65-70% at the vegetative stage and 55-60% at flowering. If the problem is low temperatures, install heaters.

Watering and moisturizing

Watering should be moderate. It is necessary to pick it up according to the type of a particular flower. It needs to be done at least once a day. Automatic watering allows you to permanently eliminate the problem of drying and waterlogging of substrates. It helps the young gardener get rid of the need to water all the time. The volume of the tank for automatic watering is calculated according to the type of greenhouse and the number of plants. You can roughly calculate using this simple formula 30 liters per 1 sq. m. Remember that less liquid is consumed during the growing season than during the flowering process.

What plants are suitable for growing in a grow box

In the growbox, you can grow herbs, flowers, fruits or vegetables. You can grow several crops at the same time. Also there you can get other cultural, ornamental, exotic plants.

And finally, a video review of a small do-it-yourself growbox:

Let's take a closer look at the concept of a growbox. Growbox or GrowBox is a box-shaped structure equipped with light lamps and good ventilation to create certain microclimatic conditions for growing plants at home.

Growbox sizes can be different, ranging from 30 cm 2 and more. The parameters depend on the number of plants planned for cultivation. The advantage of small ones will be compactness, large ones - convenience and practicality.

The main task of an equipped conventional and turnkey growbox is to maintain comfortable conditions for plant growth. It is important to properly organize the lighting and ventilation of plants. Plants can be grown in pots, in the ground, or hydroponically.

Based on the foregoing, we can say that the basis of the grow box is a box that you can make yourself or buy a specialized one, and additional equipment in the form of electric lighting and ventilation.

Take a cabinet or a box, install lamps and a fan - here the box is ready. Sounds easy. Is it really? Let's look at the options: do-it-yourself growbox or buy a turnkey growbox, while using the advice of experienced agronomists.

What material should be chosen for work? What temperature is needed and which is better - a cabinet or a box?

First of all, let's consider the main components that must be present in a turnkey grow box:

• ventilation,
• temperature,
• boxes,
• reflective film,
• heater, etc.

Lighting

Not all lamps are suitable for lighting. Growing plants is not an easy process, here you need to choose all the components correctly. For example, if you install a hundred incandescent lamps, the temperature in the box will be prohibitively high, but this will not bring any benefit, since their glow spectrum is not suitable for plants.

Types of lamps suitable for growbox lighting:

• DNAt – these are sodium lamps, which are used to illuminate plants and street lighting;
• CFL - small fluorescent lamps;
• ESL - energy-saving lamps;
• Led - special LED lamps for plant growth.

Block wall covering

To improve the lighting inside the cabinet, the walls are pasted over from the inside with a material with reflective properties (penofol, foil). Another option is to paint the interior walls of the unit with matte white acrylic paint.

Ventilation

There are practically no restrictions here. The selected fan can be anything, its main task is to renew the air inside the box and remove heat from the heating lamp. Using the advice of agronomists, it is important to remember that the comfortable temperature range should be maintained from +22 to +27 0 С.

An electronic timer or time relay greatly facilitates the work of the growbox. It refers to additional equipment. The timer is programmed to turn on and off the light and fan in the box. During the period of growth or vegetation, most plants have enough light for 18 hours during the day and 6 hours at night. When the plant becomes mature and enters the flowering stage, the illumination is set to 12 hours during the day and 12 hours at night.

If you think about the fact that the whole process must be built manually, note the time and turn the light on and off at a certain period, then an electronic timer will be very useful. Ventilation is important. Plants can get stressed if they turn on lighting and ventilation at different times and do not follow the regimen. It is enough to set the time relay once, and it will automatically work in the future, maintaining comfortable conditions, which is convenient to use.

We return to the question, to make grow boxes with your own hands or on a turnkey basis - which one to choose? Let's consider both options.

How to make a growbox with your own hands

The main principle when you assemble a grow box with your own hands is to provide comfortable conditions for growing plants. When designing, you can use the advice of experts or go your own way.

To make a mini grow box or a regular grow box at home, you need to have the following material and a set of equipment:

• cabinet/box (box)/block/chipboard;
• reflective material, such as reflective film, foil or other material;
• instruments for measuring temperature and humidity - thermometer and hygrometer;
• lamp / lamp or other lighting device;
• plant containers.

Now let's move on to manufacturing. It is quite easy to assemble a growbox from the above materials. All work can be divided into three components:

1. Box design. It is better to make a visual drawing or diagram for a general presentation of the work.
2. Selection and purchase of the necessary equipment and materials.
3. Subsequent assembly of materials.

Instruction

To determine the initial size, first of all, you need to determine in what quantity and what size of the plant you will grow. If you have no previous experience, it makes sense to familiarize yourself with the characteristics of plants by looking for information in the public domain or a specialized directory. Based on the data obtained and the desire to grow, determine the optimal amount.

Growing plants is not a very difficult job, but it must be approached carefully and carefully. Calculate the required number of containers for them and, based on the results, calculate the size of the cabinet, its width, depth and length.

If you have a box, box or cabinet with the necessary parameters, then use it, this will greatly facilitate your work. If there is nothing suitable, then you can use chipboard. Order plates of the required size and proceed to assembly. A diagram or drawing will help you. It is better to make drawings in three projections, with the required dimensions applied. This effort will not go in vain, as it will be easier to choose the source materials and assemble the grow box.

It must be remembered that the temperature must be maintained in the desired range. A thermometer will help with this task. A hygrometer will help determine the humidity of the surrounding air. For further work, it is better to have both of these devices.

Do not forget about lighting. To create a comfortable environment, ESL and led are perfect. Lamps and lamps led appeared relatively recently, but are already popular.

The main advantages of led are:

• fast heating, just 1 second to warm up the led;
• There is no ultraviolet radiation in LED lamps;
• low energy consumption compared to conventional incandescent lamps;
• Led do not contain mercury, which indicates their environmental safety;
• Led easily withstand shocks, have a small weight.

The ESL lamp has a high light output. Compared to incandescent lamps, ESLs are more economical and last longer. However, the ESL lamp contains a small amount of mercury and should be disposed of separately after use. Another negative side of ESL is the release of a small amount of ultraviolet rays, which is unfavorable for both humans and plants.

After choosing a lighting option, it is important to remember that too bright and aggressive light can damage the leaves of plants, that is, burn them. The number of light sources should directly depend on the size of the box. It is better to fix light fixtures at the top or in the side of the grow box. It should be remembered that lighting is not required around the clock, but only at certain times. In order not to injure the life cycle of plants, use a timer that will monitor the lighting in the box.

Ventilation is the next stage of work. Calculating the number of vents for a small unit is simple. If the dimensions of the box are small, make external ventilation, a few holes in the walls are enough. With a large box size, there will be few through holes. Growing plants requires good ventilation. Make a hole in which to install the fan (you can even from the system unit).

Collect all items. The previously drawn up scheme will be useful to you. Reflective film is suitable for pasting interior walls, as it reflects light well and retains heat. After that, assemble the growbox. The system for growing plants is ready.

Let's consider separately how to use the filter for the growbox. A carbon filter is desirable, but not always necessary. An air carbon filter is used to clean the air coming out of a grow box or other greenhouse. The carbon filter absorbs odors, fungus, mold and other harmful elements. It is better if the carbon filter contains coarse coal fractions. So it will better retain pollution. But the carbon filter itself can become a source of pollution if it accumulates a lot of dirt and becomes clogged. It is recommended to replace the carbon filter every six months.

Irrigation in growbox

When using an irrigation system, it is important not to forget that water is the basis of plant life and nutrition. It helps to bring useful substances to the plant for further growth.

Tips for watering plants:

• the frequency of watering depends on the size of the container, the plant in the ground should feel comfortable;
• a large plant should be watered more often;
• the seedling watering system must be done carefully so as not to damage the roots;
• the frequency of watering will affect the plants favorably;
• a large amount of water will lead to a decrease in the level of oxygen in the soil, which will negatively affect the growth of plants, the roots may rot.

Ready-made growbox or turnkey box

In this capacity, you can consider a grow tent. This awning is a tent. Growing plants in it is a great solution. The awning can be installed both on the balcony and in any other place.

Tent and its advantages:

• cost savings;
• ease of storage: when folded, the awning takes up little space;
• the awning is simple and universal in use;
• at the heart of the tent - high-quality material;
• the awning is fireproof, does not let the sun's rays through;
• reflective interior walls;
• special temperature and humidity sensors are built into the awning;
• there may be several compartments for different types of plants;
• installed pallets keep moisture inside.

A tent, as a plant growing system, is more efficient than growing plants in the ground. The use of an awning will simplify the task of growing plants indoors/ground.

Varieties of growboxes

Standard grow boxes

Are the most popular. Most often, the dimensions of such a box are 1 m by 1–2 m. The larger the box, the more convenient it is to work with it and place the necessary equipment. Necessary manipulations, such as pruning, removing leaves, shaping plants, are easier to carry out in a spacious box. The lamp system will illuminate a large area well when properly installed. It is not necessary to place many plants in the box at the same time, they will be cramped. They will stretch out a lot, trying to reach the "sun", and are unlikely to please you with the result. On the available space, it is necessary to achieve a qualitative, not a quantitative result.

grow compact

Smaller growbox. One of its key advantages is compactness. But despite its small size, it also needs to be equipped with the necessary equipment. In a grow compact, as in other types, it is important to provide for safety during operation, to protect against fire, short circuits and other troubles. Even a small box should be easy to use and clean.

stealth

Stealth is the smallest box of all. Often stealth is made from a computer system unit. Despite the fact that it occupies a small area, the stealth should work properly and function well. It is better to sheathe its inner walls with foam, which almost completely reflects the light. Stealth with such internal walls will allow plants to feel comfortable. When using this material in a stealth box, the air inside the box will not be heated, which will ensure comfort. Using stealth, you can water the plants less often, since evaporation in this design is not very intense.

growroom

A grow room is a large box, you can make a greenhouse out of a whole room or room. The task of such boxing is to maintain the internal climate constantly. Accordingly, it must be isolated from external factors: high humidity, high or low temperatures.

What can be grown in a growbox?

In the growbox, you can grow completely different crops - both greens and fruits and vegetables. Many combine several crops in one grow box, for example, tomatoes and cucumbers.

It is a little more difficult to organize the cultivation of mushrooms (grain mycelium) in a box. They can rot or mold. Mushrooms require sterility. It will be necessary to process the mycelium of mushrooms with a quartz lamp. Using the advice of experienced growers, we use a small box for growing mushrooms, since it will be easier to organize sterile conditions in it. Conditions for mushrooms should be favorable for their subsequent growth. A mistake made can destroy all micelles. Therefore, the cultivation of mushroom mycelium must be approached with special care.

In the growbox, you can organize the cultivation of cultivated, ornamental, exotic plants. Many people would like to organize a greenhouse at home, but not all flowers can grow in a home climate, they need special conditions for lighting, ventilation, ambient temperature and other parameters.

In this case, the use of a growbox will be indispensable. It will help solve all these problems.

Summing up, it should be noted that growboxes can be organized both in a small space and by defining an entire room for it. It can be made with your own hands on a turnkey basis from improvised materials and purchased ready-made.

In the box, you can maintain the required temperature, humidity and light for plants, which will allow you to control the growth rate of grown crops. You can organize the cultivation of vegetables on your balcony and get fresh vegetables all year round.

You can grow useful crops or flowers that will decorate your home. Growboxes provide a plethora of options for growing plants. You just have to choose the right one, taking into account the surrounding conditions and the presence of interest in crop production.

Sowing time is inexorably approaching, and all conversations begin to revolve around racks and boxes for seedlings, phyto- and other lamps for supplementing plants. This article explains how to make a grow box with your own hands and what is the experience of FORUMHOUSE users using grow boxes.

Traditionally, most of the gardeners of our portal seedlings on the windowsill, but

Antonpavlov Member of FORUMHOUSE

Cold blows from the window, heat comes from the radiator under the windowsill;
- airing negatively affects seedlings - at best, it reversibly fades;
- attempts to somehow maintain the microclimate and install reflectors lead to the fact that the light from the window no longer enters the apartment.

To make the seedlings on the windowsill feel more comfortable, there is a method proposed by a member of our portal Mgolovanov. On the window sill it is necessary to put wide sheets of foam (foam 2-3 cm thick), but not simple, but bent from the side of the room. And already put boxes with .

Mgolovanov Member of FORUMHOUSE

In the rooms I have a norm of +25 at a humidity of 15-20% (very dry), and on the windowsills + 12-18 (with ajar transoms).

Another way is to make your own grow box.

Growbox (GrowBox) for growing seedlings is, in essence, a mini-greenhouse, a device equipped with lighting and ventilation devices that create an ideal microclimate for indoor plants. Now you can buy a grow box of any size, stuffed to capacity with innovations and nano-technologies, which, moreover, will decorate any interior.

But for growing seedlings, a simple do-it-yourself grow box made according to the most primitive drawings will be quite enough.

Growboxes can be made from any “box” with your own hands: use an old refrigerator, system unit, bedside table and wardrobe, or assemble the body from chipboard sheets and other similar material. "Seedling" grow boxes are small in size, 0.5 - 1 sq.m. From the inside, they are pasted over with thin penafol or foil, or painted with white acrylic paint.

The microclimate necessary for plants is provided with the help of lighting, ventilation and humidification.

Devices for additional lighting are installed on the "ceiling" of the grow box or in its upper part. The topic of additional illumination of seedlings on FORUMHOUSE is fully disclosed. Phytolamps and LEDs, cold light fluorescent lamps, lamps for aquarium plants - lighting fixtures are chosen depending on the crop you are growing. At the link you will also find drawings of seedling racks.

It is important to remember that the illumination is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the lamp to the surface - when we move the lamp from 10 centimeters above the plants to 30 centimeters, the illumination will decrease by a factor of three. In practical terms, this means that in the grow box it should be possible to move the lamp away from the surface of the plants.

The second point that should not be forgotten is that the absorption of light by chlorophyll in a plant occurs in the blue and red parts of the spectrum.

The use of lamps often leads to an unacceptable increase in the air temperature in the grow box, the seedlings begin to stretch or even “burn”.

Antonpavlov

For some plants, for balanced growth, high temperatures are harmful. See how the fennel stretches.

Ventilation will help save plants from overheating. For many cultures, air from the holes made in the “box” body would be enough, but taking into account the backlight, it is better to immediately consider a forced ventilation system.

Ellis Cu. Moscow city:

Strictly install fans, otherwise fry the rastyukhi even with LEDs - all this went through last year.

A good solution for organizing ventilation in your "box" can be a computer cooler.

Some crops need a decrease in air temperature at night. So, according to the Soviet Handbook of the Foreman-Vegetable Grower of Protected Ground, published in 1980, it is desirable to grow seedlings of cucumbers and tomatoes at certain temperatures.

But you need to keep in mind that in a homemade grow box it will not work to lower the temperature below room temperature even with the help of fans - unless you are a maniac and are not ready to make a hole in the wall of your home and take the pipe out of the grow box to the street. And even if blue is added to the lamps: this will help slow down the growth of seedlings of heat-loving tomatoes and peppers, but it will not work on cabbage.

Antonpavlov

No matter how blue LED light shines on the cabbage, it will still stretch at 25 degrees and will be the letter “sic” by the time of disembarkation.

Ordinary valves on radiators can help in this situation, which allow you to control the temperature in the room.

To control the temperature in the grow box, a thermometer must be installed; another necessary instrument is a hygrometer. Excess moisture can cause seedling diseases.

Everything you need to equip the growbox can be bought at an electronics store: a cooler and a 12-volt power supply for it, a timer, etc.; users of our portal buy lamps in online stores. How to connect the equipment is clear from the diagram, the main thing is to want.

Here is a variant of a home grow box, which was made by a member of our site about setroff. This is a complex grow box with three compartments, but we will consider one compartment.

From the inside, the growbox is pasted over with reflective kraft paper with lavsan, under the paper there is insulation. The ribbon lamps are powered by an old computer's power supply.

The temperature difference in the room and the box was 10 degrees. The mini-greenhouse is ventilated as follows: on one side a small fan is placed above the lamp, on the other, a valve is made to let warm air out. The grow box has a double bottom: warm air is supplied from the ceiling of the box to the floor, and electricity is utilized, which is used not for lighting, but for heat.

At FORUMHOUSE you will learn how to do it right, you can watch a video that teaches you how to grow strong seedlings, and we also offer you a cheat sheet that will look at different options and photos from our portal members.

The main idea of ​​the project is to make an automatic grow box on Arduino, which could fit into the interior of the apartment without losing functionality.

What is a growbox supposed to do? Many things.

The system should monitor soil moisture automatically when watering. There should be flexible settings to set the humidity for a specific type of plant.

In order to create optimal conditions for growth, it is necessary to control the temperature. I used the DHT11 sensor. It already has a temperature sensor combined with a humidity sensor.

As we all know, plants need light. So I used warm glow LED light to simulate daylight (If the goal of the project is to create an economical system, then blue-red diodes for seedlings can be used. They have reduced energy consumption due to the fact that they emit light only in the spectrum absorbed by plants.) Also, there is a timer to control the time of day. (but you can get by with a photoresistor)

The RGB diode in the center of the pot is a condition indicator. If certain problems arise in operation, the diode changes color according to the program:
Green light - Empty water tank
Red light - Too hot
Blue light - Too cold
White light - everything is OK

Here I will try to list all the details:
2x DC to DC converter 1.5A:
1x DC to DC Converter 5A:
1x Timer:
1x Arduino UNO:
1x DHT11:
6x 1w LED:
3x TIP120 transistor:
2x 5v relay:
2x red LED:
1x 12v car pump:
1x water level sensor
1x plastic bucket:
3x Diodes:
1x 12v 2A Power supply:
1x ESP8266:
1x Humidity sensor:

Case dimensions:

First of all, I sawed two boards 40 cm long with an end bevel at an angle of 45 degrees. This will be the back and front panels. After that, I cut out two squares with sides of 24 cm with the same bevels. These will be the sidewalls. If you put them together, you should get a box.

To separate the soil from the electronics, a double bottom was made. To assemble the box I used wood glue and screws. I glued bars into the corners, which add strength to the entire structure.

Before painting, we drill holes for the indicator diode, for supplying power and fixing the lamp.

I cover the indicator hole with a semi-transparent plexiglass. I painted with dark brown piano lacquer.

At this stage, we will make a steel frame for the lamp.
It will be like a roof over a box. At the base is a plate with dimensions of 24 cm x 40 cm and a thickness of 3 mm. I made a 2 cm wide border around the plate. It directs the light straight down and hides the wires.

To fix the lamp, I had to make a leg from 3 cm square steel from pieces of 45 cm and 15 cm. They are welded together with a 90 degree angle. Then the lamp itself was welded to them.

Wires stretched through this square profile. Two 4 cm M8 screws were welded on the bottom.

Wiring diagram on which everything was going:

I connected three buck converters. Two LM317 to power Arduino and pump. They hold a maximum current of 1.5A. For the backlight diodes, I used a separate DC to DC converter with a current of up to 5A.

To power the entire project, I simply used a 12v 2A power supply.

For lighting, I used six powerful diodes. They were glued to the back of the metal lamp. They are controlled by turning on the Arduino through a TIP120 field effect transistor.

To measure soil moisture, I used a moisture sensor. It is connected with three wires, the signal produces a digital one. We will place the sensor in the ground and therefore it will not be visible.

For humidity and temperature control I used DHT11. With the help of double-sided tape, it was glued to the lamp so that it would not be visible.

I use a car pump. It operates on 12 volts. The pump stands at the bottom of the tank, and is fixed with hot glue. It is controlled in the same way as light - Arduino through a TIP120 field effect transistor. To reduce its power, I connected it to a power supply from 6 volts instead of 12.

In order to monitor the water level in the tank, I used a level sensor. It sticks to the top of the pump and fires early enough that the pump doesn't have time to pump air. The sensor is a simple switch that is connected to any arduino port through a 10k resistor.

The plans are to connect esp8266 to the system to notify the status of the system via the Internet.

The seams of the box were sealed with silicone. A cellophane film and a humidity sensor were placed on the bottom.

I am very pleased with my project. The goal was achieved - I made something on the Arduino and got a very nice growbox, which is not a shame to put at home.