Mater-Matic!

Greetings fellow growers! I hope you like my Mater-Matic blog!. A blog seemed to be a cool way to document the process. And since this is my first attempt at blogging, I figure a journal of some sorts would make things all the more interesting.

As for the effort at large, I look to have my little babies in the dirt by Sunday. The cold snap tonight would preclude planting today, so instead I have a few final fab tasks to do on the Mater-Matic. I've decided to add a runoff drainage system to each of the grow pans. My initial flow rate test showed that I should be able to sufficiently fill both pans with the timer set to 1 minute, but to keep the water at the right level and not to flood the cups from the bottom, a drainage system should be installed. That, along with the game plan to keep the Mater-Matic in the garage for the foreseeable future, would require some kind of flood control. I'm betting on my color temperature-balanced growlights will be more that enough for providing the light needed once the sprouts are up. Based on what I've read about these lights, folks have had good success with indoor setups.

A full systems check is planned for today - lights, water, heat - to make sure all works as planned. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a second hand DC adapter for the fan, so I ordered one from Amazon and should be arriving next week. Keeping the system in the garage should help. I plan on running the heat lamp, but given the vertical layout of the Mater-Matic, the heat should provide convection nicely.

And then there's the video. Hopefully I'll have that shot and up on the blog by Sunday or early next week, so you all can get a good look at the entire system.