I am very much a novice at Arduino and have been working through the early tutorials when I have the time.
I am a photographer and had been looking to set up a timelapse of a plant growing. I was going to use a mechanical set up to control the various elements, but suddenly though Arduino might be better, and I might be able to use it as a bit of a learning exercise.
The elements I want to control are:
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Grow lights and fill lights. Grow lights on a day/night cycle. And then also when an image is to be taken the grow lights will switch off and the fill lights on.
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Camera, a Canon DSLR
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Potentially the temperature using a fan. If this would be unnecessarily complicated though I could ditch this.
The watering I can do by hand.
I have tried endless research on google but either come up with projects to control a grow room (with no camera) or else just a time-lapse trigger for a camera (with no additional lighting control). I might be googling the wrong terms though, I have been searching for 'Arduino timelapse controller with light trigger' or similar.
My questions are; would I be biting off more than I can chew as a novice?
Could anyone point me in the direction of a similar project that I might be able to make sense of?
And is there any advice anyone could offer? (Including 'go back to the early tutorials and leave this for when your not so green!' 
)
Thank you in advance, I hope the above make sense.
From your description it dos not sound difficult. An Uno (or equivalent) would do for the processor. A Real Time Clock (RTC) to take care of timing because Arduinos are not real accurate keepers of time of day. A couple of Solid State Relays (SSR), relay or transistor (depending on the lights) to control lights. And the hardware to control the camera.
Develope the code in small parts. Get each part to work. Once you have each piece working and understand how they work it will be easier to put the pieces together into a final program. It will be easier to find tutorials for the individual parts, too.
Get an RTC to work and send time information to serial monitor.
Learn to control a SSR or whatever light control.
Actuate the SSR at times from the RTC.
Learn to control the camera shutter with the Arduino.
Get a temperature sensor and learn to output temperature to serial monitor.
Learn how to interface and control a fan.
Add fan control by temperature.
Put the pieces together.
At any point in the process that you have trouble we are here to help.
Read the how to use this forum-pleass read stickies to get valuable advice on how to get the most from the forum.
Thank you so much for your reply, i do appreciate it!
That is great news that you think it is doable.
There are quite a few terms there I don't understand but I will go away and do a bit more research and hopefully get started.
Very sound advice to break it down bit by bit, it does seem less overwhelming, an brilliant to have a step by step plan. I will have a look for videos that go through the steps.
I think I can probably do without the clock as the time 'Real Time' will not be that important as long as everything is in sync within it. So I will get on with the second step.
I will be using quite low powered LED lights.
Thank you again, I am very excited to have a project!
ps I did read the 'how to use this forum', please say if I am doing something wrong. Sorry its all a bit new, and would not be surprised if I am!
ps I did read the 'how to use this forum', please say if I am doing something wrong. Sorry its all a bit new, and would not be surprised if I am!
You have done nothing wrong. Sorry if I made you think so. It is actually unusual for a first time poster to have read the stickies. So, kudos for doing so.
I will be using quite low powered LED lights.
Then a logic level MOSFET would be my choice for an LED driver, unless the LED current is less than 20mA. In that case the LED could be powered by a pin without a driver. What are the current and voltage specifications for the LEDs?
Example of MOSFET led driver:
what it sounds like is that you need to do a simple time lapse.
there are lots of tutorials on time lapse if you are using something like an SLR or some such.
just add arduino to your google search
time lapse arduino
and if you are using a cannon, add that and you might find your camera in one.
as a note, the RTC is optional.
if you are wanting to take a picture every hour, but are off a minute (should never be that bad), it would not effect the final video. if you did want accurate timing, then you would want to use either an RTC or get the time from the Internet (requires internet connection)
I have just starting thinking about this for next years sprouts.
an arduino, a simple camera, webCAM or some such, and then take a pic.
going the full immersion Arduino route would require an SD card for the pictures and probably an ESP32 instead of the UNO.
the setup saves each photo as a separate file so some software is needed to bring them all together to make a video.
once you get yours working please come back and post a link to a video !
groundFungus:
You have done nothing wrong. Sorry if I made you think so. It is actually unusual for a first time poster to have read the stickies. So, kudos for doing so.
Ha ha, good news, i am glad and thank you. Hopefully i can continue in the same vein!
groundFungus:
Then a logic level MOSFET would be my choice for an LED driver, unless the LED current is less than 20mA. In that case the LED could be powered by a pin without a driver. What are the current and voltage specifications for the LEDs?
I think I will have to but both the grow lights and the fill lights so can look for lower voltages if I need to. Annoyingly the many lights I have for my photography are all battery powered so i would not be able to power them on/off with this system I don't think.
The smaller ones I have say they are 6.5 to 8.5volts and 3 amps. When looking for the right lights, do you advise just to get as lower amps and V as i can?
Thank you so much for the diagram, that is so helpful. Again I'm still so new to it that i will need to do a bit of research to understand it completely but that all part of the learning process!
groundFungus:
The planning and implementing a program tutorial has some good information.
Thank you for this, i have started reading through it, it is very useful.
dave-in-nj
Thank you for the message, that does explain the benefits of the RTC, thank you. Hopefully, i can do without but will see!
In terms of the timelapse, I work as a photographer and so have done quite a few time lapses before, but never with lights that need to be automated. The camera side of things I've got figured, but its the Arduino, programming, and electronics side that is a bit of a mystery to me, although hopefully for not much longer!
For the photography, id use the Canon DSLR to take RAW images that I then edit in Lightroom and Timelapse pro to get the final video.
If you are going to do the same, and wanted any advice on the photography, or putting the images together into a film, i'd be more than happy to help!
Thank you again for your message 
In reference to your lights. Get the lights that will do the job like you want. Then we can come up with the best way to control them. The lights do not need to be low amp or voltage. Or even DC powered.
Do you have a schematic of the battery poweded lights. Most likely they can, easily, be made to be Arduino controlled.
groundFungus:
In reference to your lights. Get the lights that will do the job like you want. Then we can come up with the best way to control them. The lights do not need to be low amp or voltage. Or even DC powered.
That's great thank you, I will do that and see what the best options are.
groundFungus:
Do you have a schematic of the battery powered lights? Most likely they can, easily, be made to be Arduino controlled.
I don't have any schematics for the light, unfortunately. It's probably better to get dedicated lights anyway as I don't know when I would need them. (I might check if the manufacturer sells an adapter to power them from the wall, I assume then it might be much easier as it would just be a case of putting some sort of switch in the lead that Arduino could control.)
ps apologies for my varied response time I'm having chemo at the moment that knocks me out intermittently for days at a time. On the positive side though it hopefully gives me time to learn a new skill/hobby here!!
Thank you again for your help. I will go away for a few days or so to do some research, armed with your advice, and hopefully, come back with some more informed questions!
