Self Sustainable Living Home Lamp

This project starts couple years ago, I wanted to grow moss in the pot with other flowers, but I have failed all the time, moss always dried up.

After some research I realized there are thinks called Vivarium or Paludarium. Found ideal affordable glass can which can fit into small flat and start to play. Most useful source of information about building Paludariums and Vivariums i have found are on YouTube canal of SerpaDesign. This guy is sharing many years of practical experiences with building small DIY or bigger professional projects. Technical part of building is most likely similar in each case. Drainage separator, soil and greenery.

First stage finding passion

I have start this project before corona. Classical days full of rush and work. No time to find moment to stop, properly sit and observe details of the thinks I was playing with. But when the Corona hit first time I was locked at home and finally able to observe details of the things I was playing with. I saw high mountains growing out of the small rocks in my bottles, vast green fields out of small moss patches and bizarre shaped trees from plants growing out of nowhere. My little world was perfectly alive jungle alike environment, growing even more then I was expecting. But was still missing something. Something which would underline its micro scale and move it little bit to the functional and designish position. I have found lot of Little world projects which looks great but to me little bit gytchy with all those plastic toys inside. Wanted to keep focus on plants not on artificial story. So I started experimenting with the light and the lid which is the the most visible part of the bottle. After some time I understood, that self sustainable light is the best way to create autonomous living small world.

Second stage - electronic part.

If the system want to be self sustainable without cables it need to run on solar energy. After some research I have found Adam Welch video about solar charger for 1,2V rechargeable battery which can power up led diode. This helped me a lot to accomplish this project. Thanks for it Adam.

If you are not into electronic and soldering you can use old garden lamp for this project. Well anyway u'll need a little bit solder but don't worry its easy.

Third stage - developing of the lid.

The lid needs to keep all electronic in dry condition except led which is hanging inside the can. Also should be air tight to close humidity inside the ecosystem. This was the ideal task for 3D printer which i never used before. So it was best use case to to get into 3D printing.

For the glass container I have chosen 3,7l bottle for preserving fruits and vegetable which can be find at home usually used to preserve pickles or cabbage in central Europe. It was the biggest bottle i could find and it was ideal size for small garden.

Hardware:

• Glass can - 3,7l Orion - called also as pickles glass - without screw. This glasses are mostly used in central Europe, if in your country are different lid sizes you'll need to adjust diameter of the lid.
• Gravel - as a base for drainage
• Charcoal - small crumbs to preserve water clean
• Sieve - to create barrier between water and the soil textile / 3D print
• Soil - from the forest or substrate from the shop - if you do wild garden ideally to bring greens with their natural soil they growing in.
• Decoration - stones, wood, leaves, anything you'd like to have inside.
• Plants - from the forest, or small leave plants or succulents you find home, or dedicated terrarium plants
• Lid - 3D printed lid / original lid is usable as well
• Sealing - strip of bike air tube, or rubber strip

Electronic:

• YZ805 - 1x
• NiMh AAA battery -1x
• 5V solar panel -1x
• Inductor - 1x
• Prototyping board - cca 2x2cm
• LED diode - many alternatives my fav. is one from the led chain, they have thin long insulated cables
• 4x cca 5cm long thin cables

Other:

• Soldering equipment
• Spoon - optional
• Glue
• Pin
• Lighter

As a first step I would suggest to start printing the lid. It take some time and can be done while our electronic part is ready to be install.

In case of different diameter:

Lid is made for bottle with diameter 9,2cm, if you have different bottle you need to adjust diameter of the 3D model but not the size of solar panel hole. For that you can use attached STL. Don't forget to count with thickness of the sealing rubber, so lid inset should be slightly smaller then diameter of the glass. Also as i noticed, some bottles has not exactly round shape, so don't be frustrated after first not matching print.

Also adding 3D print Gcode for 0,4 nozle PLA which takes cca 3:40h to print.

While the lid is printed, lets do some soldering work.

Connection is so simple, you wont need more than 4 lanes of prototyping board.

1. Prepare cables for soldering - strip out cable insulation on the ends.
2. Its better to melt soldering wire to the naked ends of the cable, this way we achieve that wire will stick to surface faster. Tri to keep it in thin layer, so it can get into holes of prototyping board.
3. Prepare battery for soldering, scratch the surface with sand paper or something sharp. If you have no soldering wire with rosin flux add some onto the surface of the battery so the soldering stick faster. Don't solder too long onto battery, it can get hot very fast which can damage the cell.
4. Solder YZ805 into prototyping board - front side is defined by with the text.
5. Solder inductor into right holes, doesn't mater of the rotation
6. Add cables from solar panel
7. Add cables from battery
8. You can use led from the led chain
9. Don't solder led before you have everything tested.

Make small holes to the lid for led diode. Use Dremel or hot pin.

Don't forget to put the LED through the lid before you solder it to the board.

Test led if its lightning before you solder it ;)

Put some glue around the legs of the LED to prevent humidity get in the electronic chamber.

Basic building logic is to layer up :

1. Drainage - create space to store water and create base for next layer\
2. Chalk coral - to keep the environment longer clean
3. Separator - sort of sieve to keep most of the soil outside of the water in attachment is printable sieve with dimensions for Orion bottle
4. Soil or substrate for plants
5. Plants and decoration

To create wild paludarium we ideally go for the plants outside. Plants can be found around the block, or in the forest. For me is the best idea to go for a trip to the forest and bring home some greens. Ideally to bring also some soil with them, so they have at least similar environment to survive.

Don't be sad if your greenery die after some time. Its nature and we are creating artificial environment to keep it alive. Sometimes plants we put inside doesn't like the environment we prepared for them.

I have experienced bottles which survived one month to one and half year.

In some bottle I put succulents and some of them like it and growing like newer. So its up to you what design you choice.

Good Luck!