Electro-Culture DIY

  • Thread starter AdvancedBioHydroponics
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DavidW

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I just wanted to say, for anyone who's interested in how this work, I am very interested in this topic and have been studying it for a few years now - it's amazing how it all works! It involves lots of subjects ranging from electrochemistry, plant electrophysiology, geophysics and more.

Anyhow - the effects are real - I've performed many experiments myself, and there are lots of university studies as well.
 
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jeno

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Nice methods on farming, is this thread still alive or it is the end as I don't see the rest of the methods continue here.
 
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DavidW

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What are you guys looking to learn?

Has anyone tried anything new lately?

I'll throw out something new to share... This is a bit old by 10 years or so, but from what I've seen so far, no one in the THC community has been experimenting with this... Has anyone tried to optimize growth using time-varying waveforms? Check out this paper ($): http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-37843-3_15

Essentially, it has been determined for 2 different types of plants, a monocot vs a dicot, that they experience growth acceleration effects greater than that of DC with different voltages,me.g. 2.5 and 3 volts, I think, with square waves of 16 and 20Hz. Interesting stuff!
 
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jeno

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Well I wanna learn electro culture. Cannot seem to find the correct voltage and current needed. Also is there a circuit that I can DIY to try out?

DavidW- the link you posted is for purchasing ebook? I see that more like a advertisement rather then sharing in the forum.
 
QLTYlab

QLTYlab

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I will be experimenting a good bit with this as I get further along in my electrical training @DavidW I want to be able to understand in order to replicate if i find something.
 
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DavidW

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Hey @jeno, glad to hear about your interest in the subject... To answer your question, well... That's the ultimate question. I've seen a few people get great results from using a simple lawn-light solar panel as a power source going directly into the soil. These typically output something between 1.5 and 3V, for the small panels.

DIY Experimenting
To start experimenting, all that's needed is a power source like that, or perhaps an old cell-phone charger power supply or even a D-cell battery (the big one is best so it has enough charge to last for awhile). For electrodes, all you really need are some iron nails... Stainless is fine, but there may be toxicity issues depending upon how they react in electrolysis reactions with the soil-water.

Regarding the link, sorry that it's a for-fee one... You may be able to find some snippets of interest through google books, or find a way of checking it our for free at a university library. I have no affiliation with them, just figured its a good resource to share (but I don't have the right to share the file underneath).

Optimizing Output
In terms of a circuit to try out with regards to optimization, I see 3 approaches:
1) use a cell-phone charger power charger on an hourly interval timer (this will probably be sub optimal, but may do well (giving the plant an hourly break from stimulation stress)
2) use a microcontroller circuit like an arduino
3) use a simple 555 timer circuit that you can find online to create a series of pulses.
 
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jeno

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Hi DavidW, thanks your reply. Yes I am actually looking for arduino pulse circuit. But if I am not wrong the PWM pin of arduino might not have enough voltage and current. So I think will need a arduino plus 555 circuit combo. Googling but didn't find much and I am newbie with both of them.
 
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DavidW

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I think the arduino should be fine by itself... It has a max current output of approx 20mA, and a voltage of 3 or 5 volts or so... I think that should be plenty. The only thing you may want to do is add a current-limiting resistor to your output line in case too much current flows (you don't want to damage the output pin), when the soil is too wet.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
 
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jeno

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Sure I will try that and see what happen. Also think you got me wrong, I mean the PWM pin and not the arduino 3.3V or 5V output.
 
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WhiteSnake29

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Hello. Just joined. I'm in Tokyo. I was very confused listening, reading, wondering how to start my terrace garden...actually, I was very stressed out. Dumb! Then about a month ago I woke up to a voice screamingin my ear: 'just do it'. OK! Bye-bye stress. I went out and ought a few things. I grounded my few pots and even put antennas on them. I wanted to see if the atmosphere electricity could help. It's been a month since I planted cherry tomatoes. Today's the third time it rains, also I've only watered them 2 times.

They're now about 12" high. Just about all the seeds I had in the two envelopes took. I want to add one more piece of experiment. The grounded wire is connected from the south to a square copper plate just over an inch on the side. On the north side I have a similar sized galvanized plate. The plates are connected to each other by thin wires. One wire connecting a set of copper-galvanized plates is copper. The other is galvanized steel. The latter so far seems to be doing better. I'll add that on this latter one I didn't put an antenna.
 
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jazzcom

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Is anyone still interested in electro-culture? I am no electrician nor am I growing marijuana or hemp. I live in Kansas what can I say! But I do have a fairly large garden utilizing the soil, wicking tubs, and Kratky barrels. So it looks to me that the easiest way to attempt this on a large scale would be to charge the water. Anyone have any suggestions on how to do this or where to go to find out?
 
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