I finally get to work on some of the more exciting things in the dome. Automation!!! I love being lazy!
A few years ago I made up some vent openers which use windshield wiper motors. They work well for the small greenhouse, but the frames have had some structural problems in strong winds. For the dome greenhouse I’m using linear actuators to operate the vents. The actuators have a lot more lifting strength and can withstand stronger wind forces.
To attach the actuator to the window frame, I took a piece of angle iron and made a cross brace. The brace will fit about half-way up the vent. I cut off a section from each end so that there were tabs that would be used for bolting the brace into the face of the vent frame. I then welded a couple of tabs into the bracket which provided the connection linkage for the actuator. After rounding over the edges and cleaning up some of the welds, the bracket was attached to the vent frame.
The rest of the braces are standard steel bar stock that are bent at slight angles. There are four of them which go from the greenhouse struts to the back side of the actuator. Because of the odd angles of the dome, a few of braces need to be bent as compound angles. If this was a traditional vent the angles would have been much simpler bends.
I temporarily bolt the top brackets to the back side of the actuator and mark where the brackets connect into the dome’s strut. It wasn’t necessary, but I set the actuator to be level when it was closed, simply for aesthetics. I drilled out the first hole in the dome strut and attached the bracket. Once the pieces start to hold themselves in place, it’s much easier to mark and attach the remaining brackets.
The bottom brackets are marked and installed the same way. It’s just a bit more critical to make sure they are placed properly so that the vent is pulled completely closed when the actuator is fully retracted. Once all four brackets are secured, the pyramid shape from the triangulation creates a sturdy mount for the actuator.
Now that it’s fully assembled, a quick test is in order. All the pieces are cleaned and painted to give the system a nice new look! Once the paint is dried, it’s a quick reassembly and then time to it get wired to the controller.
A regular two-conductor wire is used for each actuator and each vent opener has a line that runs back to the controller. The actuators have built in limit switches which stop the motors automatically. To open and close the vent, you just have to reverse the polarity of the power in the wire.
The thermostat controller is a prototype six-relay control unit that can be programmed to set each vent to open on independent temperatures. The unit can be programmed to sample the temperature at predetermined intervals and also delay the change between relays so that all the vent motors aren’t running at the same time. This keeps the unit from drawing too much power all at once. Each relay can also be disabled and forced into an open or closed position. There are more details about the thermostat in the description area of this video.
Thanks for watching. Don’t forget to “thumbs up” this video if you want to see more like it in the future and feel free to leave comments too.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
All The Dome Videos
I put all the dome videos together in this nice index video. Just click on the one you want to watch!
Also, Here's a play list that you can click on to queue them all in a row: YouTube Playlist
Also, Here's a play list that you can click on to queue them all in a row: YouTube Playlist
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Geodesic Dome Greenhouse - Part 12 - THE END
This is the final video about construction the aquaponic geodesic dome
greenhouse. Don't worry, there are still more videos about the
aquaponic system and other projects we're working on!
Hi Everyone. I’m Rob Torcellini from Bigelow Brook Farm. This is the last video on the series on building the geodesic dome. I wanted to thank you for watching all of these. I’ve had a great time of the last year building this. Learned a lot, made a few mistakes along the way, but overall, it came out pretty good!
I’m planning on do a short series of videos about how I set up the aquaponics system inside the dome.
I also had this camera shoot about 1500 photos of the entire project that will be in a time-lapsed video.
Again, thanks for watching and we’ll see you soon!
It’s starting to get a bit warm in here so it’s time to add some vents. I started by building frames that would fit loosely inside various areas around the dome. There will be a total of five vents and each section will be able to swing open and closed.
Next I removed the existing polycarbonate glazing and then attached the new frame to the dome with a couple of standard door hinges. In order to get the glazing to fit back into its spot properly, I had to cut it down a bit so that it wouldn’t hit against the hinges or the surrounding polycarbonate when the vent was closed.
I simply held the polycarbonate into the new frame and screwed it into place with the washer-backed screws and the vent was done. The remaining 4 vents installed the same way, but just a bit trickier for 2 of them since they were 15 feet off the ground.
All of the exterior joints needed to be sealed to help prevent the rain from leaking in between each joint. I used a clear polyurethane tape which is used as a protective tape on the edge of aircraft wings and wind turbines. If it’s good enough to hold on to a wing at 500 miles per hour in the rain, it just may be good enough on the dome. It was easy to apply by just removing the backing and pressing it down with a j-roller. Once it bonds with the polycarbonate, it’s basically impossible to remove. After covering each joint I drove a washer backed screw through the tape and polycarbonate.
Wherever there is a vent opening, I applied the tape to the polycarbonate and cedar which created a channel for the water to drain from. I’m not sure how well the tape will bond to the wood…only time will tell.
Applying the tape on the upper areas of the dome proved to be a bit trickier. I found it to be unnerving being up there with the risk of sliding over the side or dropping through a section of polycarbonate. I’m happy to say there were no trips to the hospital for this project!
I wanted to use some of the logs that I cut down last year from the site in a couple of areas of the dome and for grow beds for the aquaponic system. My neighbor stopped by with his WoodMeiser saw mill and milled roughly 1500 feet of white pine into 1 inch and half inch thick boards. It was a great way to save some money instead of buying lumber and we got to use some logs that would have gone to waste.
Inside the dome I covered the walls with some of the half-inch pine boards. Each piece is roughly fitted, measured for the proper angle, and cut to size. Sometimes the pieces had to be cut a few times to fit properly. It was a very tedious process cutting all the angles, but the end result looks great!
In the shed area, I only filled the walls with one inch of foam to save a little money. The rest of the wall cavities are filled with regular fiberglass insulation. The boards on these walls installed much quicker since there are long and have square cuts!
The ice and water shield held up well through the winter but it was time to shingle the roof. A friend of mine volunteered his crew to help out which was much appreciated. Even for a professional builder, there was a lot of pondering on how to lay the shingles on the dome area.
On the south side of the greenhouse, I leveled and planted timothy grass. Eventually, this area will used as a small orchard. A local arborist was more than happy to get rid of their wood chips so I was able to spread this on the remaining areas that didn’t have any top soil.
The shed area and dome knee-wall is sided with cedar shakes. They require little maintenance and they help to give a contemporary building a little New England feel. I also added a small awning over the main entrance to make the building less….boring.
That’s about it. There will still be more videos in the future. If you have questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below and I’ll try to address them in future videos. Thanks for watching!
Hi Everyone. I’m Rob Torcellini from Bigelow Brook Farm. This is the last video on the series on building the geodesic dome. I wanted to thank you for watching all of these. I’ve had a great time of the last year building this. Learned a lot, made a few mistakes along the way, but overall, it came out pretty good!
I’m planning on do a short series of videos about how I set up the aquaponics system inside the dome.
I also had this camera shoot about 1500 photos of the entire project that will be in a time-lapsed video.
Again, thanks for watching and we’ll see you soon!
It’s starting to get a bit warm in here so it’s time to add some vents. I started by building frames that would fit loosely inside various areas around the dome. There will be a total of five vents and each section will be able to swing open and closed.
Next I removed the existing polycarbonate glazing and then attached the new frame to the dome with a couple of standard door hinges. In order to get the glazing to fit back into its spot properly, I had to cut it down a bit so that it wouldn’t hit against the hinges or the surrounding polycarbonate when the vent was closed.
I simply held the polycarbonate into the new frame and screwed it into place with the washer-backed screws and the vent was done. The remaining 4 vents installed the same way, but just a bit trickier for 2 of them since they were 15 feet off the ground.
All of the exterior joints needed to be sealed to help prevent the rain from leaking in between each joint. I used a clear polyurethane tape which is used as a protective tape on the edge of aircraft wings and wind turbines. If it’s good enough to hold on to a wing at 500 miles per hour in the rain, it just may be good enough on the dome. It was easy to apply by just removing the backing and pressing it down with a j-roller. Once it bonds with the polycarbonate, it’s basically impossible to remove. After covering each joint I drove a washer backed screw through the tape and polycarbonate.
Wherever there is a vent opening, I applied the tape to the polycarbonate and cedar which created a channel for the water to drain from. I’m not sure how well the tape will bond to the wood…only time will tell.
Applying the tape on the upper areas of the dome proved to be a bit trickier. I found it to be unnerving being up there with the risk of sliding over the side or dropping through a section of polycarbonate. I’m happy to say there were no trips to the hospital for this project!
I wanted to use some of the logs that I cut down last year from the site in a couple of areas of the dome and for grow beds for the aquaponic system. My neighbor stopped by with his WoodMeiser saw mill and milled roughly 1500 feet of white pine into 1 inch and half inch thick boards. It was a great way to save some money instead of buying lumber and we got to use some logs that would have gone to waste.
Inside the dome I covered the walls with some of the half-inch pine boards. Each piece is roughly fitted, measured for the proper angle, and cut to size. Sometimes the pieces had to be cut a few times to fit properly. It was a very tedious process cutting all the angles, but the end result looks great!
In the shed area, I only filled the walls with one inch of foam to save a little money. The rest of the wall cavities are filled with regular fiberglass insulation. The boards on these walls installed much quicker since there are long and have square cuts!
The ice and water shield held up well through the winter but it was time to shingle the roof. A friend of mine volunteered his crew to help out which was much appreciated. Even for a professional builder, there was a lot of pondering on how to lay the shingles on the dome area.
On the south side of the greenhouse, I leveled and planted timothy grass. Eventually, this area will used as a small orchard. A local arborist was more than happy to get rid of their wood chips so I was able to spread this on the remaining areas that didn’t have any top soil.
The shed area and dome knee-wall is sided with cedar shakes. They require little maintenance and they help to give a contemporary building a little New England feel. I also added a small awning over the main entrance to make the building less….boring.
That’s about it. There will still be more videos in the future. If you have questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below and I’ll try to address them in future videos. Thanks for watching!
Monday, May 14, 2012
The Better Bell Siphon
This is an explanation of how a traditional bell siphon operates. It
goes into some of the physics of how the auto siphon gets started and
stops. One of the biggest problems I've run into is getting them to
stop properly on large grow beds. I've solved this problem with one
simple little piece! It's so simple, I'm kicking myself for not
figuring it out years ago!
This grow bed is using 3/4" pipe for the drain and standpipe with a 2" bell. The fill rate is LESS than 1/2 liter per minute and the siphon still starts with no problem. It's been running for about a week without any problems.
This grow bed is using 3/4" pipe for the drain and standpipe with a 2" bell. The fill rate is LESS than 1/2 liter per minute and the siphon still starts with no problem. It's been running for about a week without any problems.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Installing a tank window
I installed 2 viewing windows in my 1000 gallon stock tank for the aquaponic system.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Doors, Floors, and Dome Foam
Made a lot of progress on the inside over the cold winter months.
Here's the transcript:
We’re nearing the end of the project! There will be one more video after this with some of the finishing touches and then I’ll go on to some other videos about the aquaponic setup. You may also notice that some of these segments may look out of order. I was working on everything at the same time depending on the weather, but wanted to group similar segments together to create a better story line.
I needed a large door in the dome so that I could move tanks and grow beds in and out of the building. Garage doors leak a lot of air so I decided to build some custom doors. The doors were framed using 2 by 4’s and pressure treated plywood. When they are completed, they are bolted to some strong hinges and anchored directly into the building’s frame. I still need to add some gaskets and weather stripping to create a good air-tight seal.
I also needed to remove some of the struts from the dome structure to make a larger opening for the equipment. I removed 6 struts and it didn’t seem to make any difference with dome’s structural integrity.
To level out the floor, I brought in several yards of sand and spread it throughout the building. I then racked it out and roughly leveled it out by eye.
Now that the sand was in place, I was able to do a final leveling and compact the area where the stock tank belonged. I decided to place the tank directly on the sand to help protect the base, and save a few dollars by not needing to put brick pavers under it.
To keep the floor from settling over time, I borrowed a plate compactor and compacted the entire area. When this was complete, I also borrowed my neighbor’s laser level and raked out any of the high or low areas, and then compacted everything again.
There are about 5500 bricks that are used in the floor so I made up a couple of carriers which made the job go much quicker! It’s still a lot of work to carry them all in, but at least the bricks remain flat and oriented so that setting them into place is fairly quick. Between carrying them in and laying them out, I average 10 bricks per minute.
To get started, I set a straight string across the floor and lay out a course along the line. This will act as the base reference for the rest of the rows.
The bricks are laid in an alternating, or basket weave pattern and can be adjusted a bit to compensate for their imperfections.
Along the edges, I roughly cut off the bricks so they would fill any gaps that were smaller than a standard brick. Since most of these areas will be covered with grow beds, I wasn’t concerned about making them look perfect. Any remaining voids were filled with gray sand.
The same type of cuts were made around any of the plumbing that comes up through the floor since these areas will also be well hidden by grow beds.
The shed area and northern walls are all insulated to help retain heat during the winter. I decided to use a do-it-yourself spray foam instead of fiberglass batting because of all the odd shapes that needed to be filled. It also will reduce air leaking, and minimize mold. The foam sticks to everything, so I had to protect the polycarbonate from over spraying by stapling painter’s plastic throughout the dome.
Not only does the foam stick to the dome, it also will stick to clothes and skin. Full body protection, goggles, and a respirator is needed!
The foam comes as a complete kit. Each kit contains 2 tanks with A and B parts, hoses, disposable mixing nozzles, and spray tips.
It took a little while to get used to a good spraying technique. The first few cavities were a bit uneven, but once I got a feel for how it worked, I was able to fill the areas better. The kits come with a fan spray for regular stud spacing, and in hindsight, it would have been better to use that tip everywhere.
The biggest problem I ran into was spraying the majority of the foam overhead. My goggles kept getting foam on them and I couldn’t clear them. By the time I was done with a set of tanks, I could barely see anything!
I also insulated my custom-built doors.
The fan tip worked really well at controlling the spray pattern. The foam comes out a bit slower, but you have far more control and a more even fill. To save a little money, I sprayed the standard sized wall cavities with one layer and plan on using standard fiberglass batting.
The knee-wall under the dome is also filled with foam. Once it hardens, it’s easy to cut off any of the excess that sticks out. I then cover the walls with treated plywood.
That’s about it for now. We’ll wrap up the series finishing up the exterior and a few odds and ends. Thanks for watching!
Here's the transcript:
We’re nearing the end of the project! There will be one more video after this with some of the finishing touches and then I’ll go on to some other videos about the aquaponic setup. You may also notice that some of these segments may look out of order. I was working on everything at the same time depending on the weather, but wanted to group similar segments together to create a better story line.
I needed a large door in the dome so that I could move tanks and grow beds in and out of the building. Garage doors leak a lot of air so I decided to build some custom doors. The doors were framed using 2 by 4’s and pressure treated plywood. When they are completed, they are bolted to some strong hinges and anchored directly into the building’s frame. I still need to add some gaskets and weather stripping to create a good air-tight seal.
I also needed to remove some of the struts from the dome structure to make a larger opening for the equipment. I removed 6 struts and it didn’t seem to make any difference with dome’s structural integrity.
To level out the floor, I brought in several yards of sand and spread it throughout the building. I then racked it out and roughly leveled it out by eye.
Now that the sand was in place, I was able to do a final leveling and compact the area where the stock tank belonged. I decided to place the tank directly on the sand to help protect the base, and save a few dollars by not needing to put brick pavers under it.
To keep the floor from settling over time, I borrowed a plate compactor and compacted the entire area. When this was complete, I also borrowed my neighbor’s laser level and raked out any of the high or low areas, and then compacted everything again.
There are about 5500 bricks that are used in the floor so I made up a couple of carriers which made the job go much quicker! It’s still a lot of work to carry them all in, but at least the bricks remain flat and oriented so that setting them into place is fairly quick. Between carrying them in and laying them out, I average 10 bricks per minute.
To get started, I set a straight string across the floor and lay out a course along the line. This will act as the base reference for the rest of the rows.
The bricks are laid in an alternating, or basket weave pattern and can be adjusted a bit to compensate for their imperfections.
Along the edges, I roughly cut off the bricks so they would fill any gaps that were smaller than a standard brick. Since most of these areas will be covered with grow beds, I wasn’t concerned about making them look perfect. Any remaining voids were filled with gray sand.
The same type of cuts were made around any of the plumbing that comes up through the floor since these areas will also be well hidden by grow beds.
The shed area and northern walls are all insulated to help retain heat during the winter. I decided to use a do-it-yourself spray foam instead of fiberglass batting because of all the odd shapes that needed to be filled. It also will reduce air leaking, and minimize mold. The foam sticks to everything, so I had to protect the polycarbonate from over spraying by stapling painter’s plastic throughout the dome.
Not only does the foam stick to the dome, it also will stick to clothes and skin. Full body protection, goggles, and a respirator is needed!
The foam comes as a complete kit. Each kit contains 2 tanks with A and B parts, hoses, disposable mixing nozzles, and spray tips.
It took a little while to get used to a good spraying technique. The first few cavities were a bit uneven, but once I got a feel for how it worked, I was able to fill the areas better. The kits come with a fan spray for regular stud spacing, and in hindsight, it would have been better to use that tip everywhere.
The biggest problem I ran into was spraying the majority of the foam overhead. My goggles kept getting foam on them and I couldn’t clear them. By the time I was done with a set of tanks, I could barely see anything!
I also insulated my custom-built doors.
The fan tip worked really well at controlling the spray pattern. The foam comes out a bit slower, but you have far more control and a more even fill. To save a little money, I sprayed the standard sized wall cavities with one layer and plan on using standard fiberglass batting.
The knee-wall under the dome is also filled with foam. Once it hardens, it’s easy to cut off any of the excess that sticks out. I then cover the walls with treated plywood.
That’s about it for now. We’ll wrap up the series finishing up the exterior and a few odds and ends. Thanks for watching!
Monday, March 5, 2012
Aquaponics in the News
Got to spend the morning with one of my shale customers while they
presented their system to CT Governor Dan Malloy and the Commissioner
for the Department of Agriculture, Steven Reviczky. This footage was
taken at the Arc of Meriden in their greenhouse
Other News Links:
Meriden Record-Journal
WTNH News 8
Patch.com
Other News Links:
Meriden Record-Journal
WTNH News 8
Patch.com
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