Greenhouse Heat-Sink

Hi all,

I am part of a team of students who are on a Product Development and Technology Integration Degree in Denmark. We are developing a greenhouse heat-sink concept and intend to do some prototype testing to determine how efficient such a system will be. We are also developing this as an Open Source product so will share all findings with everyone.

At this stage we have built a small greenhouse 2.6m(8.5ft)*0.8m(2.62ft)*1.5m(4.9ft), this will be partitioned so that one side will be a control providing baseline data and the other side will have a heat-sink fitted. We have a several dataloggers with temperature sensors to monitor each greenhouse and the ambient temperature, then we can collate the data over several weeks or more to see how effective the heat-sink system is.

We also have a materials testing box to test the thermal conductivity, thermal mass and air flow through each material type.

Our aim is to make the entire system Open Source, we also have smaller key goals:

· Extended growing season and frost protection for your greenhouse
· Keep the cost as low as possible
· Easy installation and accessibility of parts
· All plans, work instructions, technical documents, electronic design and software will be freely available
· Low power system running from Solar and battery back-up
· Eco-Friendly by using recyclable materials as much as possible

We have devised a very simply questionnaire which will take no more than 1 minute of your time, the questionnaire is designed to aid us in a 'House of Quality' study which determines which factors are most important to the user.
The idea is to determine which criteria are most important to you and then place them in an order of importance.

Google Forms House of Quality Questionnaire

Further details about the project as we progress will be published at the below link:

Greenhouse Heat Sink further information and findings

An idea of what the finished product might look like


Thank you very much for your time and we are interested in all comments good or bad.

Best regards,
Anthony Scranney

 

Hi JWK,

Thank you for the comments and Dick Strawbridge is a very cool inventor. I am from the UK and saw these episodes, which was the inspiration for the idea. We want to test the heat-sink and also improve it, so people can actually see the value from it. Ideally the information we gather should also allow people to scale everything up, so it can then be used for any size greenhouse.

Ideally we wanted to have 2 full size greenhouses side by side and were partnering with a greenhouse supplier here in Denmark, but their interest has fallen off. So our plan is to offer everything Open Source and it allows us to continue with the project whilst studying for our degree.

Yes the concept greenhouse is split into 2 sections:

1: With the the heat-sink and loggers provide heat-sink data
2: No heat sink and loggers to provide base-line data

I cannot even send a link via a conversation as this forum has rules set in place, I will try and remove the protocol and message it over to you JKW. If you are happy that the form is satisfactory, posting in this thread would be greatly appreciated.

 

Done
same here no response on the submit button ?

 

I've filled this in twice each row. But no response when hitting the submit button, help?

 

Hi Harry,

Thanks for looking at the survey, I just ran a test which I delete from the results and it worked ok.

You have to ensure that there is only 1 answer per column and all categories are answered, or the form will not be allowed to submit. We need to implement this as the order of importance for each has to be listed, or the data will be skewed.

I have amended the comments on the form to explain this and sorry if this caused any misunderstanding :-)

 

Hi Gwen,

Thank you for looking at the survey and sorry you had a issue, I just tested the survey (as per Harry's response) and can confirm it appears to be working ok.

You have to ensure that there is only 1 answer per column and all categories are answered, or the form will not be allowed to submit. We need to implement this as the order of importance for each has to be listed, or the data will be skewed.

 

So its only one answer per COLUMN , so the survey is to put 5 items in order of importance.
A little confusing Ant, you may want to reword it a little.
Bet JWK got it right first time , he can read instructions !

 

Sorry for any confusion caused, I have placed some of the text in BOLD so that part should stand out.

 

I intend to our course finishes in June but we should be working on the prototype for the next 6 weeks and should be able to log data up until June. The prototype is a temporary construction in a friends garden and his wife wants it down in June as well, we should hopefully have some usable data by then.

This is something I have been interested in for a long time, if only I had a garden I would construct 2 prototypes and perform a long term study....but until that days arrives this will have to do.

In the process of setting up a Google community, I also have my own website where I share tutorials on microcontrollers and electronics, so will dedicated a small section of the site to this as well. We have a fair amount of information based on research but nothing is conclusive and we need to collate all this into one place where it can be easily viewed.

 

Survey submitted. A very interesting project, I shall watch as you go along and am keen to see your findings.