I am starting up with a new farmbot express and have it moving smoothly and am getting ready to plant my first test crops to get all my sequences set up and have my bot running smoothly.
I am pretty sure I understand and can set up a watering sequence which will work but now I need to figure out how to actually get the farmbot to do planting.
I am looking at the preloaded “pick up seed (express)” and I ran it to see if it would indeed pick up a seed, and it does not, it just turns on the vacuum and hovers way above the seed trays. Has anyone got a planting sequence for the farmbot express that works and they can share somehow?
ideally a single sequence that would plant an entire group? Or good resources on making one since most of the documentation refersto genesis and not express.
@Wusch When you create a new FarmBot Web App account, the account comes pre-installed with some default sequences to help users understand how to do basic operations, such as seeding.
Unfortunately, since all setups are different and the software does not have sensors to detect the exact height at which the seed bin is mounted, this will require you to modify the default steps in that sequence. Most likely, you will need to do one of two things:
change the Z-value in the MOVE block of the default steps provided to match your real-world seed bin height.
Change the Z-value of the seed bin in the tools panel
It will take some adjusting for the first seeding operation. You may need to supervise the early phases of seeding to make sure everything is correct. When you are still learning, it may be helpful to use inert rice grains for practice to make sure everything is set correctly. If you see an error after the first run, you can always perform an emergency stop, make adjustments, then start over.
If this is not the case for your setup or you are having trouble finding the correct value, please let me know.
Thanks @RickCarlino One other thing I noticed is my vacuum pump is blowing rather than sucking. I have not used to at all at this point. Reading other threads, I guess I need to take apart the rainshield and either reverse the leads on the pump or change the output hoses. This this another known issues with ExpressXL 1.5 units?
@Wusch If I remember correctly, newer model pumps perform suction in the same direction, regardless of how electrical leads are attached. You could try it though, as it will not harm the pump. We also added a note in the documentation about these sorts of situations, though if you are using a completely new pump, the situation noted in the docs is less likely.
Hi @Jay
I can share with you the sequence I am using: it is way from perfect but it works. Hopefully someone more experienced will share something better!
First I created a sequence to plant just one seed:
