Magnetic Shaker for Hydroponic

Hydroponic systems can offer a lot of food and are the good way to grow plants fast and without to much space. You only need water, a nutrion solution for plants and a recipient to put all in. One of essencial things in this systems is move the water and solution in orther to oxigen it and avoid problems. For this, I've made a shaker magnetic system for hydroponic that you can watch in this instructable.

The materials that you'll need are:

• 2 recipient (You can buy it or, like me, recyclate some one)
• 2 little neodymium magnets (Like these)
• 1 stir bar
• 1 5v fan (used in electronics, for example this)
• 1 timer (I've used it)
• 1 piece of styrofoam
• Expanded clay balls for the plants (you can buy them here)
• Wires and USB male conector
• Screws, washers, and nuts

Tools:

• Cutter
• Hot silicone gun
• Pliers
• Screwdriver

I started with cut the container of water and the piece of styrofoam in order to do the body of magnetic shaker. I made two holes in the cover of the container for the water to put two recipients for the plants.

The piece of styrofoam is the base of the magnetic shaker so it will have the shape of the container and the timer. In the middle of the piece, you have to make a square hole for the fan. We will also take the opportunity to make the channels through which the cables will go. These go from the timer to the fan and another from timer to USB conector.

After prepare de body of the magnetic shaker, is time to ensamble magnets on fan and make the connections with timer. Take the stir bar and attach the neodynium magnets on his extrems, this will make us guides to stick them on the fan. I will glue the magnets on the blades of fan with hot glue.

In this moment, I put screws and nuts in the four corners of the fan and I adjusted its height in order to level it with the base of the styrofoam.

Then, I make the connection between timer, fan and USB connector. Now, it's time to test the timer and fan to watch that all works fine. After test, and if it is ok, we can glue the wire in his channels and fix all components of the magnetic shaker.

So far, we have finished the assembly part of the magnetic shaker and we can proceed to place the plants. I plant lettuce for my salads, they grow very well and fast in this kind of systems.

For this, I very carefully put the little lettuce in the recipient and fill it with the expanded clay balls. It's a simple and effective process.

You can see this project in spanish here

I hope that you like!