Farmbot 2.0 growing taller plants

Hardware
1

To move farmbot to a popular plant selection IMHO it needs to be able to grow taller plants like tomatoes and maybe even corn. What changes are being made in design by the team to make this possible and be able to ship a packaged Farmbot that can accommodate a 4/5 ft. tomato plant?

Michael

2

We’re not currently working on hardware designs to accommodate taller plants. That would be a great project though for either a DIY builder or someone who wants to modify a kit!

3

I’ve been playing with the idea of a skycam-like design to accommodate higher plants. I’m not sure how accurate it would be.

2 Likes
4

I am ok for now with this height, @roryaronson looking at some first verions of farmbot in youtube or even in the webpage, they were taller than this V1.2
I would like you to share us what was the train of thoughs that let your team decide to choose this version V1.2 height so if someone want to make it taller. we will not make the same design mistakes

5

The primary constraint you must consider when making a FarmBot taller is the rigidity of the gantry and z-axis. If you make the FarmBot too tall without adding more v-wheels, using thicker/larger plates, and/or using larger extrusions, then the system will flex too much. This can cause problems with mounting and dismounting tools. So the reason the FarmBot is the chosen height is to ensure the system is rigid enough.

Don’t get me wrong though - FarmBot could definitely be taller. You would just need to strengthen almost all of the structural and linear guide components for it to work reliably at the larger size.

1 Like
6

I’m curious if you could just have a deeper garden box? Or raised rails for the FarmBot Express to ride on?

I’d be interested but the thing I grow the most is Tomatoes… mind you guess we could FarmBot everything not Tall, but less likely would be interested otherwise… but would be nice if it was cable of running on taller rails.

7

Hey Guys,

There is a university team in Nebraska that is already working on this item!

Check out the following link on YouTube:

1 Like
8

If you only need to plant a few taller plants you can place them at the ends of the beds where the FarmBot gantry will not interfere with the plants.

Marc