Growerbot Kit Assembly Guide

25 Replies

Here are annotated images of the circuit boards to help with assembly. Click on them to get to a giganto version.

Main board:

impzoomlabeled

 

R2 is 10k, R7 is 1k, and all other resistors are 10k.
C4 and C6 are .1 uF, and all other capacitors are 10uF.

Soil probe:

probezoomlabeled

The capacitor is .1 uF, and all resistors are 10k.

Encoder: R1 is 10k.

Please comment with any other questions on getting started with assembly; thanks for your patience!

 

25 thoughts on “Growerbot Kit Assembly Guide”

  1. Bob Bedinsky

    Hi Luke,
    I did not get how to upload arduino sketch on growerbot since i do not see any serial port.
    It do not seem a good solution to swap ATMEGA328 from a arduino board to growerbot,
    I see a group of pins “program”, do I need them to attach a serial and upload a sketch?
    I would like to have an annotated photo of pin usage
    I do not have an electric imp on growerbot

    Reply ↓
    1. luke iseman Post author

      hi dan,

      it’s definitely not a *years* outside kind of setup now, but the sensor is robust enough to leave out for weeks at a time. be sure to protect the main body of the growerbot from water…

      thanks,
      luke

      Reply ↓
  5. George K

    I’m a bit confused as to the orientation of the LCD display and connecting board…do you have any clear pics about how they all fit together? I think I messed up on my orientation…thanks.
    Maybe there’s some documentation out there that I missed?

    Reply ↓
  6. Gabriel Walsh

    I get
    avrdude: Yikes! Invalid device signature.
    Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
    this check.

    When trying to bootload the chip. I’ve tried modifying the avrdude and nothing. Any advice?

    Reply ↓
    1. luke iseman Post author

      Hi Gabriel,

      Have you tried programming the chip in a normal arduino? If this still doesn’t work, let me know and I’ll send you a preprogrammed replacement.

      -Luke

      Reply ↓
      1. Gabriel Walsh

        Hey Luke-

        Thanks for the suggestion – was finally able to try and I still get:

        avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

        Would you mind sending me a chip – so sorry.

        Gabriel Walsh
        237000 Bennett Chase Dr
        Clarksburg, MD 20871

        Reply ↓
        1. luke iseman Post author

          Hi Gabriel,

          I just mailed 2 replacements, to make up for the delay:)

          Thanks for your patience, and please let me know when you get it working!
          -Luke

          Reply ↓
  7. George K

    Hi Luke, finally only now coming up for air to resume assembly, and it looks like I soldered the entire LCD assembly exactly opposite to how I should have. Very hard to follow your video and extract details on the LCD board — a simple still picture would be worth a thousand videos! (or is it a picture being worth a thousand words?:-)). I have attempted to de-solder everything, but it’s a daunting task with the equipment I have on hand (solder wick). Probably best that I buy a new LCD board and LCD from you, if you can make those available to me separately….if so, advise on cost including USPS to Canada…thanks

    Reply ↓
    1. luke iseman Post author

      Hi George,

      I’d be happy to send you a replacement. If you take and post pictures of the lcd assembly process, I’ll cover the cost. Same address as for the paypal order, right? Let me know if you need more detail to assemble the lcd.

      Thanks,
      Luke

      Reply ↓
      1. George K

        Hi Luke, That would be great, sure, happy to take some pics of the (correct) assembly process. I assembled with the silk screen of the lcd mount board facing the same way as the LCD. Much appreciated, and yes, same shipping address as my PayPal order.
        cheers,
        George

        Reply ↓
        1. David Mintz

          Did those pictures ever get posted? I’m about to do this step and don’t want to screw up

          Reply ↓
  8. lyncastic

    Thanks for posting this. I’ve put together a basic board and was surprised to find the GND terminal of the 7805 is connected to the center barrel power pin. Any idea why the power was done this way ?

    Reply ↓
    1. luke iseman Post author

      hi lyncastic,

      the most price-performance effective power supplies i found had center ground. if you have the opposite, you can of course just cut and reverse wires anywhere on the cord…

      thanks,
      luke

      Reply ↓
  9. Michael

    Hey Luke,

    I was following your video instructions for programming the growerbot. I got the blink program to work. I don’t have an FTDI Cable, so I was going to upload the gbot1219.ino file as I did with the blink program.

    Open gbot1219.ino
    File → Upload Using Programmer

    Then I get an error as follows…
    gbot1219:40: error: ‘TSL2561’ does not name a type
    gbot1219:70: error: ‘DHT’ does not name a type
    gbot1219.ino: In function ‘void setup()’:
    gbot1219:137: error: ‘tsl’ was not declared in this scope
    gbot1219:137: error: ‘TSL2561_GAIN_16X’ was not declared in this scope
    gbot1219:138: error: ‘TSL2561_INTEGRATIONTIME_13MS’ was not declared in this scope
    gbot1219:142: error: ‘dht’ was not declared in this scope
    gbot1219:158: error: ‘Alarm’ was not declared in this scope
    gbot1219.ino: In function ‘void loop()’:
    gbot1219:175: error: ‘Alarm’ was not declared in this scope
    gbot1219.ino: In function ‘void light()’:
    gbot1219:425: error: ‘tsl’ was not declared in this scope
    gbot1219.ino: In function ‘void temphum()’:
    gbot1219:436: error: ‘dht’ was not declared in this scope
    gbot1219.ino: In function ‘void relayCheck()’:
    gbot1219:464: error: ‘now’ was not declared in this scope

    I’m only basically familiar with programming an Arduino. What do I need to do to fix these errors?

    Thanks!

    Reply ↓
    1. luke iseman Post author

      Hi Michael,

      It looks like you haven’t added the correct libraries to your arduino folder for using the light sensor, time, and humidity. Here are the libraries you need:


      Thanks,
      Luke

      Reply ↓

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