A while back, [Kyle] wanted to grow gourmet mushrooms. The usual way of doing this is finding a limestone cave and stinking up half the county with the smell of manure. Doing this at home annoys far fewer neighbors, leading him to create a device that will regulate temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentration. It’s called Mycodo, and it’s one of the finalists for the Automation portion of the Hackaday Prize.
Mycodo is designed to read sensors and activate relays, and when it comes to environmental sensors, there’s no shortage of sensors available. Right now, Mycodo has support for the usual DHT11 and DHT22 temperature and humidity sensors, HTU21D, AM2315, SHT* DS18B, and infrared sensors like the TMP006 and TMP007. These are connected to a Raspberry Pi equipped with a 7-inch touchscreen and a few relays to turn power outlets on and off. It’s not a complete system, though: think of it as a firmware for a 3D printer – the firmware doesn’t give you a 3D printer, it just makes building your own much easier.
Already Mycodo has been used for a few environmental control issues in addition to growing mushrooms. It was used to control the humidity in a bat cave – for real bats, not some cosplay thing – and a temperature- and humidity-regulated apiary. With the right environmental control system, there’s nothing you can’t do, and we’re glad to have Mycodo in the running for the Hackaday Prize.
That is a very handy system, I have a example of why from the last couple of days. See the image below, nice healthy golden oyster mushrooms growing under cover outside. The weather here is very mild, but humid, so perfect growing conditions, however if you look carefully at the image you can see that the first flush failed early and the buds just died. This was because we had one or two days of drier weather before the current weather system and the mycelium got confused.
With an environmental control system I would not have such problems and could have the culture fully enclosed so that insects etc. could not get on it.
http://oi63.tinypic.com/24lo10y.jpg
I’d give them more light too if you want them to have that beautiful vibrant gold color.
Shrooms, oh my!
I would like to have true summer at night all year long. That’s sleeping weather, not when Canada pays US a visit. Clothing and sheets not needed. 85 & 85.
Studies show that most people sleep better in a cold room with a heavy blanket.
I know that’s my preference at least.
Bats, Bees and Boletus (had to google that one) that’s quite a versatile system but I still have a question, what has he done about the poop?
One man’s poop is another man’s treasure
I wonder where he found that terminal strip with left hand threads
They’re regularly threaded, the wires are just sandwiched between the metal plates below the bolt head.
I didn’t read too much into it, just wondering whether it can grow truffles?
You don’t need to grow truffles — all you need is a pig, a mason jar, a gun, and this advice from Dave Barry:
https://books.google.com/books?id=8nx8v2FVZ24C&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq=dave+barry+truffles&source=bl&ots=lrZ9xSI68e&sig=IAqVexbUaDxJhiYcMHOkhoR3Ng0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7l5edlJLPAhVq9YMKHRoaCXsQ6AEILDAC#v=onepage&q=dave%20barry%20truffles&f=false
You could certainly try! However, the current method of cultivation truffles is particularly difficult. It involves inoculating tree roots with the fungus and then promoting its growth. Most truffle hunters, as asheets has pointed out, use pigs and dogs to root them out in the wild.
As far as i Know there has only been one succesful test of growing truffles and it has never benn replicated.
So growing truffles is hard.
That’s some pretty wiring.