When i got interested in ecology I wanted to explore and test hypothesis. I needed a method to keep bottles and jars of water at a steady temperature. So I had two options, a very large aquarium or a climate chamber. Visualizing scenario's of leakage, breaking glass and short circuit I decided that a climate chamber was the way to go.
I started the development and construction of the first generation in 2016. The first build was designed with an external heating system that was a box on the right side of the climate chamber with a heat cable that heated air that would be blown into the climate chamber when the temperature dropped below 25 degrees Celsius. On the left side of the climate chamber was the cooling system based on a camping cool box with ice packs. The air would be blown into the climate chamber when the temperature exceeded 25 degrees Celsius. Both routes worked with a system of pipes.
A PLC controlled fans that were activated at the specified temperature to activate the cooling and heating of the climate chamber. After a few test runs I realized that the internal led lighting system produced enough heat to keep the climate chamber at a minimum temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. Another flaw in this design was that the entry points of the cooling and heating system was a pipe with various holes that started at the unit side and was extended to the other side with various holes. This result was that most of the air from the unit entered the climate chamber the closest to the unit. Eventually I solved this by reducing the holes that where the closest to the unit and the further from the unit the larger I made the holes. Eventually I used this climate chamber for 2 study sessions.
The second generation was build in 2020 and was a smaller system with the cooling chamber build underneath the climate controlled space and used the lighting system for heating 24 hours a day. The system was designed with cooling regulation at both sides with the entry point at the back of the climate controlled space with a sensor in the middel for control. In this scenario the left and right side had separate sensors that activated the cooling system. This method of cooling works quite fast only the middle of the system was influenced by the cooling of the left and right side. After some calibration this resulted in a system that cooled the left and
right side quite fast and the middle followed within 1 or 2 minutes. After the cooling for both sides was finished the sensor in the middle started blinking until it was stable at 25 degrees Celsius. The third indicator sensor in the middle is something I really liked. It visualizes the temperature on the PLC screen and it makes it visible that when both sides are cooled to 25 degrees Celsius the middle follows.
In 2022 I started the construction of the third generation that was eventually finished in 2023. The system is heated by the internal lighting system, a led lighting system that stimulates photosynthesis. The cooling system uses air from the lab as long as the temperature is below 20 degrees Celsius. The systems uses separate cooling for each side with a control sensor in the middle. There is an extra heating cable with a thermostat that can be enabled in case there will be an extreme winter and the heating by the lighting system won't be enough. Eventually after 7 years of development this is the climate chamber I use in my lab.
