This page contains a comprehensive description of the Cave Box’s user interface. The layout of the page matches the layout of the menus on the device and menu options are written in Bold.

Please remember that anything you change has to be saved by afterwards selecting Save Settings in the Settings menu

If you are having trouble understanding something please send an email to the address on the Contact page (Add Link) and I will try and make it clearer.

The Cave Box software is released under an open source license, meaning that anyone can read the code and modify it. Here is the repository.

• Humidity displays the current relative humidity.
• Temperature is the current temperature reading.
• LED Select this to switch the LED on or off.
• Controller option determines if the Cave Box is on or in a standby mode.
• Presets are a way of quickly changing the humidity and number of fresh air exchanges. The default values are in the middle of the ranges given by Stamets in Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushroom. All presets can be overwritten when selected by editing Set Humidity and FAE Per Hr then remember to Save Settings. Select Presets and scroll to choose from the following:
  • Pin 95% relative humidity and 8 FAE per hour, this setting is designed to induce pinning.
  • Fruit 85% relative humidity and 6 FAE per hour, the default setting to fruit most mushroom.
  • Oyster 87% relative humidity and 4 FAE per hour.
  • Lions Mane 92% relative humidity and 6 FAE per hour.
  • Shiitake 70% relative humidity and 6 FAE per hour.
  • Reishi 92% relative humidity and 4 FAE per hour. Stamets doesn’t give an FAE for Reishi so you may need to experiment.
  • Custom 1 to 6 are extra settings for the user to use as they wish.
• Settings opens an additional menu.
  • Set Humidity is the relative humidity the Cave Box is trying to keep the fruiting chamber at.
  • FAE Per Hr sets how many times the fan comes on per hour. To decrease the CO2 increase this number. If you are growing Reishi or another high CO2 species you should make this number small. If this variable is set to 0 the fan only comes on to disperse the water vapour.
  • Save Settings should be selected after you make changes to the settings on the Cave Box. If updates the memory on the Cave Box with the current settings. and if you don’t select it then your settings will only be saved until the next time the Cave Box is powered down. I programmed it like this because the memory can wear out after around 100 000 rewrites, so having the user control the save function means it only occurs when necessary.
  • Calibrate FAE starts a routine that attempts to measure how long the fan should be on for each FAE (fresh air exchange cycle). Before selecting this set the Controller to off and make sure that the humidity sensor is at the ambient humidity of the room by opening your enclosure and wafting any humid air out of it and waiting until the humidity reading stabilises. Set the Set Humidity option to 95% or the greatest humidity that your Cave Box can achieve given its size. Then select Calibrate FAE which will take over the Cave Box until its finished its measurement. When the screen says the settings have been saved it has finished and you can view the result by looking at Settings -> Advanced -> FAE On Time.
  • Advanced contains extra settings that are more technical and will only be useful for some users.
    • Enable Fan switches the fan off when the controller is running.
    • LED Show RH controls whether the lights colour displays the relative humidity, with it going blue as the air in the box humidifies. If this is set to FALSE the LED will go white and stop pulsing.
    • Light On Time allows the LED to be switched off at night. The default is 24 hours which means the light is on all the time. If you change it to 8 hours for example. then the light will be on for 8 hours then off for 16, simulating a day night cycle. The cycle starts when the Cave Box is restarted, so unplug it then plug it in at the time you want the light to come on. This is useful if you keep the Cave Box near your bedroom and don’t want the pulsing blue light to keep you awake.
    • FAE On Time is how long the fan comes on for during each FAE (fresh air exchange). It is set by the Calibrate FAE option but you can also set it manually.
    • Max RH sets the relative humidity measurement beyond which the fan turns on. The default is 96% (98% for versions<1.04) meaning if the humidity in the box goes above 98% the fan comes on until it’s below 96% again. To prevent dew formation the maximum value is 98%. It can’t be set lower than Set Humidity.
    • Edit PID Variables contains a sub menu for editing the PID variables that control how quickly the Cave Box responds to changes in humidity. The Cave Box uses a PID algorithm to control how much water vapour is released and its response can be tuned by editing the PID variables. The default values will work well for most users but if you want an especially consistent humidity there are lots of resources on the internet about tuning PID controllers.
    • Print Settings prints the current configuration of the Cave Box over the serial port to a connected computer. This is useful for debugging.
    • Factory Reset resets the Cave Box to the default configuration it came with.
    • Version displays the version of the Cave Box software installed on the device.