compareeHub

FARMBOT — OPEN-SOURCE CNC FARMING ROBOT

A three-axis gantry that plants, waters and weeds a raised bed, controlled from a web app you design like a strategy game.

by FarmBot Inc.

FULL CAD BOM FIRMWARE DOCS

GardenRobotics

difficulty
●●●●○
time
a week-plus
license
MIT
repo
repo ACTIVE1,163 stars

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

  • 3D printer + filament — printable parts — files are in the repo
  • Electronic parts — full list with part numbers in the repo BOM
  • Dev board / microcontroller — runs the project firmware
  • Soldering kit + basic tools — one-time buy, serves every future build

Partner

Reach your Pi from anywhere — Remote desktop to the machine running this build — no port forwarding, works right from the browser.Try Getscreen.me
Videos
1

COMPAREE VERDICT

FarmBot is a Cartesian robot that rides aluminum extrusions over a raised bed, planting seeds with a vacuum needle, watering individual plants, and removing weeds with a rotary tool or push-spike. You design your garden layout in a web application — drag crops into a grid, set spacing and depth — and the robot executes the plan. The entire software stack is MIT-licensed and the hardware CAD is published openly. The catch is scale: this is not a weekend project. You are building a three-axis CNC machine outdoors, running motors and solenoid valves in weather, then wrestling through initial calibration and tuning soil-moisture feedback loops. The documentation is thorough and the community is real, but you are signing up for a week of assembly, a few evenings of troubleshooting, and ongoing tweaks as plants grow. The single thing most likely to go wrong is underestimating how much the outdoor environment will fight you — UV on cables, rain on connectors, soil clumps jamming the weeding tool. If you want a robot garden and you are comfortable with the idea that this is as much an infrastructure project as it is a build, FarmBot delivers. If you want vegetables this season without the engineering, buy seeds.

NOT IN THE REPO

  • —Full hardware CAD available in the FarmBot-Inc GitHub organization.
  • —Robot OS (farmbot_os) is MIT-licensed and in active development.
  • —Complete documentation site at software.farm.bot and genesis.farm.bot covers assembly and operation.
  • —BOM is split across multiple repositories; you will need to navigate the FarmBot organization to gather all the files.
  • —FarmBot Inc. sells complete kits commercially; this page covers the open-source build path.
  • —License is MIT for software; hardware is openly documented but the commercial relationship is more complex than a pure hobby project.

Can I build this?

Printnothing required
Buyaluminum extrusions, stepper motors, Raspberry Pi, vacuum pump, solenoid valves, tubing, raised-bed frame, all detailed in the BOM across FarmBot repositories
Toolsbasic hand tools, drill, hex keys, wire strippers; no CNC or specialized fabrication required
Skillsintermediate mechanical assembly, basic electronics (wiring motors and sensors), some Linux comfort for the Raspberry Pi setup, patience with calibration
Timea week-plus: assembly is detailed and methodical, first calibration and soil setup will add evenings
Cost$$$: motors, extrusions, electronics and plumbing add up; the BOM is in the hundreds of dollars even if you source components yourself
SafetyMains voltage powers some configurations; sharp tools (seeder needle, weeding implements) and moving gantry present pinch and cut risks. Keep children and pets clear during operation. Standard outdoor electrical safety applies.

Build at your own risk. Projects involve tools, electronics and sometimes mains voltage — follow the creator’s safety notes.

A desktop 3D printer that prints in full colorPartner · Kickstarter
A desktop 3D printer that prints in full color

HeyGears G1: 10M+ colors and transparent parts in one print, plus UV printing on flat objects. Figures, parts and labels — no painting.

See how it prints

Videos

Source video from payload; no additional metadata provided.

Gallery

Start here

Navigation into the creator’s own docs — we don’t rewrite the guide, we route you to the source.

  1. 1.Read the overview at genesis.farm.bot to understand the mechanical design and what you are committing to.(The documentation site is comprehensive; start there before ordering parts.)
  2. 2.Gather the BOM from the FarmBot-Inc GitHub organization — hardware files are split across repositories.(You will need to navigate multiple repos; the main farmbot_os repository links to the hardware org.)
  3. 3.Build or source a sturdy raised bed; FarmBot needs a flat, level frame to mount the gantry.(The bed is not included in the kit and must be built to the dimensions your gantry will cover.)
  4. 4.Follow the mechanical assembly guide at genesis.farm.bot, taking your time with extrusion alignment.(Misalignment here will haunt you during calibration.)
  5. 5.Flash the FarmBot OS to a Raspberry Pi and connect it to your local network, then work through the web app setup.(The web app is where you design your garden; it talks to the Raspberry Pi over your LAN or the internet.)

Resources

Documentation, files and community threads for this build — we link straight to the original sources and never rehost the creator’s files.

Meet Beni, Your First All-Terrain Camera Robot!Partner · Kickstarter
Meet Beni, Your First All-Terrain Camera Robot!
See how it works

KNOWN ISSUES

  • Underestimating outdoor durability: UV degrades cables, rain finds connectors, and soil clumps jam the tool head. Plan for weatherproofing and regular cleaning.
  • Skipping bed preparation: the raised bed must be dead flat and the soil must be consistent. An uneven bed will throw off the Z-axis and ruin seeding depth.
  • Buying the wrong extrusion lengths: the gantry spans your bed; measure twice, order once. Standard sizes do not fit all garden layouts.
  • Expecting plug-and-play: initial calibration is manual and involves teaching the robot where the bed edges are, tuning motor speeds, and verifying tool offsets. Budget an afternoon.
  • Ignoring the community: FarmBot has an active forum and years of troubleshooting history. If you hit a wall, someone else already documented the fix.
  • Overloading the first season: start with a simple crop layout to learn the system, then scale up. A full grid of plants will surface every tuning issue at once.

Can I build this if I have never worked with a Raspberry Pi?

Yes, but you will need to follow the flashing and networking steps carefully. The FarmBot OS image is pre-built, so you are not writing code, but you do need to be comfortable with basic Linux setup and connecting to a device over SSH if something goes wrong.

Do I need a 3D printer?

No. The mechanical components are machined or off-the-shelf; any custom brackets or mounts are designed to be laser-cut or ordered from a service. Some builders print tool mounts for customization, but it is not required.

How does weeding actually work?

FarmBot uses a camera to identify plants and a tool head with either a rotary cutter or a push-spike to remove weeds between your crops. It is not magic — you will need to tune the plant detection and the weeding tool will occasionally miss or damage a plant. Think of it as assisted weeding, not autonomous perfection.

Can I run this off-grid?

Technically yes, but the power budget is non-trivial: stepper motors, a vacuum pump, solenoid valves, and a Raspberry Pi. You will need a solar panel and battery system sized for continuous operation. The documentation does not cover off-grid setups, so you are on your own for power design.

What happens when it rains?

The electronics are in a weatherproof enclosure, but the motors and cables are exposed. FarmBot is designed to handle rain, but connectors can corrode and UV will age cables over seasons. Expect to replace worn parts annually if you run it outdoors year-round.

Community builds

No community builds yet — be the first, we feature the best ones.

Discussion1

FROM THE COMPAREE TEAM

The web app lets you design a garden like a build-order in a strategy game, and the robot executes it in real soil. What would you plant in your first grid?

CompareeTEAM1mo agoedited

Practical notes from our verification: the farmbot_os repository is the software heart, but the hardware CAD lives across multiple repositories in the FarmBot-Inc GitHub organization — you will need to navigate there to gather the full BOM and mechanical files. The documentation at genesis.farm.bot and software.farm.bot is comprehensive and actively maintained, but there is no single one-click BOM export; expect to cross-reference. The YouTube video in the payload is a general overview, not a build guide — community walkthroughs exist but are scattered. The biggest surprise is how much the project assumes you will tune and maintain it seasonally; this is not a set-and-forget robot, it is a platform you will iterate on as your garden grows.

FarmBot Inc.

FarmBot started as an open-source hardware project to bring precision agriculture to home gardens and education. The team built a full-stack platform — from mechanical CAD to robot firmware to the web app — and released it under open licenses while also offering commercial kits. The project has been running since 2016 and powers school gardens, research beds, and obsessive backyard growers worldwide.

GitHub

Star the project on GitHub

DISCLAIMER

  • Comparee is not the author of the projects featured here. All rights to each project belong to its creator — every page links to the original source, and we never host creators’ files.
  • Information is provided without warranty and may become outdated as projects evolve. Prices are indicative bands only — always check the creator’s parts list for current costs.
  • Building and operating any project is at your own responsibility. Protective equipment, safe workshop practice and compliance with local regulations are the builder’s responsibility.
GitHub repo