By Graham Smith April 1, 2024
The Greenwall
Rescued a commercial greenwall that was being thrown away. The original controller was proprietary and no longer supported, so I gutted it and built my own.
Custom Controller
Replaced the stock controller with a Particle.io Argon board mounted on a breakout board with relays. Designed a custom PCB for the electrical conductivity and pH probes that monitor nutrient levels in the reservoir.
The controller lives inside the unit base alongside the reservoir and irrigation pump.
Cloud Integration
Used Particle webhooks and AWS API Gateway to send sensor data to a MongoDB database. Built a Retool dashboard for remote monitoring and control - to switch between auto/manual modes, override outputs, and adjust schedules for irrigation, lighting, fans etc.
Results
Now I grow all my own herbs year-round, including varieties I can’t find at the grocery store.
