MY True HP Aero Plug&Play Pods

[Essex]

I dont realy think that nutrents are as corosive as everyone thinks? If ya are running 200-300ppm like ya ment to in true hp this is the same amount of salts as some peoples tap water? and 5-6 ph is not that acidic to be corosive?

Type "outdoor misting systems" in google, there are 1000's of sites with mutiple "cheap nozzles" the reason they are cheap is because they are a "mass market" product, unlike some technical website who sells to the trade. Some I found advertise 6-11 micron spray nozzles and sell 5 micron filters, stupidly small sizes!!!

"They wouldn't even test them that seriously when they are designed for that purpose."
They are a spray nozzle for many purposes that all get made by slanty eyed races with small pins who can SEE 5 microns....... lol (they are a common product mass produced why would the tec spec's lie?)

"How is it possible on a micron scale"
They make microchips with up to 1 million transistors per mm2. 1mm=1000 microns (there always squintin, this is why! lol)

 

[OregonMeds]

I didn't ever mean to say they were corrosive, just that they create a buildup fast. After your next run look at the shit you have to clean and imagine that in the inner workings of the regulator. It won't eat it, just could gunk it up fast if it's not meant to handle what would be called DIRTY water.

I don't think you understand the difference between billion dollar silicon wafer manufacturing tolerances, and lowest bidder cheap part production Essex. Like I said I have seen the tolerances and failure rates in manufacturing, and the average error rate is much greater than the scale you want accuracy on. Just the slightest variation in pressure, heat, cleanliness of the tools, age of the tools, thickness of material going in, etc etc etc. Manufacturing is only as accurate as you would like when the money and time and quality control are put into place to keep it that way, and that just doesn't happen on the cheapest mass produced parts where nobody would ever know if it was putting out 5 micron mist or 100 micron.

As long as they misted people and kept them cool and didn't spit big globs of water all over they would be called good.

They don't even test more than 1 in a 1000 parts when produced on this scale.

 

[Essex]

Well I agree to some of ya points but why would they specify a 6-11 micron mist or whatever output, when in ya own words who would care as long as it keeps ya cool? any spray nozzle will spit huge variances ya are after most to be in the 5-50 micron range acording to NASA.

I plan on filtering with probaly a 2 stage system to eminate large particals and with 1000PSI I would have thought that any smaller particals would be broken down under pressure? this is a problem with any TAG grow but regular cleaning and mantence should help.

I dont have all the answers, Im just going to try! I can say it WONT work first time but with some mod's i'll get it going............

 

[fatman7574]

I dont realy think that nutrents are as corosive as everyone thinks? If ya are running 200-300ppm like ya ment to in true hp this is the same amount of salts as some peoples tap water? and 5-6 ph is not that acidic to be corosive?

Type "outdoor misting systems" in google, there are 1000's of sites with mutiple "cheap nozzles" the reason they are cheap is because they are a "mass market" product, unlike some technical website who sells to the trade. Some I found advertise 6-11 micron spray nozzles and sell 5 micron filters, stupidly small sizes!!!

"They wouldn't even test them that seriously when they are designed for that purpose."
They are a spray nozzle for many purposes that all get made by slanty eyed races with small pins who can SEE 5 microns....... lol (they are a common product mass produced why would the tec spec's lie?) Slanty eyed races Dude what is that all about.

"How is it possible on a micron scale"
They make microchips with up to 1 million transistors per mm2. 1mm=1000 microns (there always squintin, this is why! lol) Dude your going to get banned typing this kinda stuff. Writing LOL is not a cover up for such things.

The salt prevalent in tap water is calcium. Calcium is not corrosive but is a mineral that tends to precipitate when ever heated or when the water it is in is pressurized. The higher the water is pressurized the lower the amount of calcium until stuaration (so precipitation occurs). At 1500 psi you will have huge an mounts of calcium precipitation. Fertilizers salts are mostly corrosive salts.

The reason the nozzles are cheap is beacuse they are poorly made of cheap materials with no precision or quality control. Read up on the abrasive qualities of high pressure solutions sprayed through nozzles. The cheap plastic nozzles are not worth using. The cheap plastic nozzles has almost no life span used with high pressures. Brass has less then 1/10 the life span of stainless steel, which has a minimal life span in comparison to hardened stainless steel, which has a minimal life span in comparison to ceramic nozzles. Used for applications such as colling the problem associated with the abrasion of the higher pressure solution constantly increases the orifice (hole) size of the nozzle is not an extreme issue. However when spraying nutrients where micron size and volumes is highly important it is extremely important. My nozzles bodies are brass but the guts that are in contact with the solution and that form the actual spray (orifice) aspect of the nozzles are hardened stainless steel. With low pressure atomization they will go a decade or more before oro ifice enlargement becomes an issue. Plastic sprayer nozzles used with HP should probably be replaced after every grow at a minimum. I use 5 micron filtration for my nutrient solutions. the manafcturer recomendation is for 20 micron or smaller. I definitely do not consider 5 micron filtration stupidly small.

If I used a recirculating system and an accumulator tank such as with a HP system I would use 0.5 micron filtration. Even then the accumalator tank needs to be cleaned regularly with acid or your filter elements will need frequent replacement. The merely running of the water through a high pressure pump causes calcium bicarbonate formation and precipitation. The solution held under pressure causes more calcium bicarbonate formation and precipitation. Both heat and pressure cause water soluble calcium to form carbonate/bicarbonate precipitation which coats tanks,pipes, valves, gages, nozzles and clogs filters quickly.

Run some hot tap water through a coffee filter and measure the TDS of the water. Now measure the TDS of your cold tap water. If you have any appreciable calcium in your cold tap water you will have appreciable less in your filtered hot water. The heating of the water turns soluble calcium into calcium carbonate which is easily removed by filtration. The nutrient waterin the resrvoir feeding a HP aero pump feeding the pressure tank ghas a higher soluble calcium level than the water leaving the mister nozzles. That calcium does not just dissapear. It becomes calcium bicarbonate and coatts things and sits in the bottom of the accumulator tank. If the nutrient pH was above around 8 it would be calcium carbonate. As the water is at a low pH the some of soluble calcium becomes calcium bicarbonate.

 

[fatman7574]

I didn't ever mean to say they were corrosive, just that they create a buildup fast. After your next run look at the shit you have to clean and imagine that in the inner workings of the regulator. It won't eat it, just could gunk it up fast if it's not meant to handle what would be called DIRTY water.

I don't think you understand the difference between billion dollar silicon wafer manufacturing tolerances, and lowest bidder cheap part production Essex. Like I said I have seen the tolerances and failure rates in manufacturing, and the average error rate is much greater than the scale you want accuracy on. Just the slightest variation in pressure, heat, cleanliness of the tools, age of the tools, thickness of material going in, etc etc etc. Manufacturing is only as accurate as you would like when the money and time and quality control are put into place to keep it that way, and that just doesn't happen on the cheapest mass produced parts where nobody would ever know if it was putting out 5 micron mist or 100 micron.

As long as they misted people and kept them cool and didn't spit big globs of water all over they would be called good.

They don't even test more than 1 in a 1000 parts when produced on this scale.

They likely check "visually" one a day on average. Actual instrument and product performance testing is likely only done when the equipment is initially brought on line. Precision just doesn't matter in the applications where the product is intended to be used. it is not like they are fuel nozzles for a space shuttle or even spray nozzles for spraying agricultural foliar fertilizersm, pesticides or herbicides.

 

[fatman7574]

Well I agree to some of ya points but why would they specify a 6-11 micron mist or whatever output, when in ya own words who would care as long as it keeps ya cool? any spray nozzle will spit huge variances ya are after most to be in the 5-50 micron range acording to NASA.

I plan on filtering with probaly a 2 stage system to eminate large particals and with 1000PSI I would have thought that any smaller particals would be broken down under pressure? this is a problem with any TAG grow but regular cleaning and mantence should help.

I dont have all the answers, Im just going to try! I can say it WONT work first time but with some mod's i'll get it going............

5 to 50 micron is not the recomended range for use. It just so happens that the sad atomizer that atomix chose to use could be adapted to spray as little as 5 micron. NASA recommends essentially 50 micron. Yes there will be a small percentage of the spray above and beow 50 micron. However good nozzles set up properly provide only a very, very small percentage of droplets smaller than 30 micro or higher than 80 micron. The length of time this performance lasts depends on the quality of the materials used to make the nozzles. The cheap nozzles are just made of polyethelene plastic. Their performance is short lived. The higher the ressure the shorter their period of usability.

 

[Essex]

I wasnt saying plastic, I wouldnt use plastic. what about nozzles like this,

http://www.normist-tr.com/menu.htm
http://www.amfog.com/mt_series.asp
http://www.mistingpros.com/Mist-Nozzles/
http://www.cloudburst.com/catalog/nozzles-plugs-c-21_30.html

Are any of these the correct type needed? these are mosty brass with stainless steel inserts? this is what I meen by cheap, under £10 each. most need over 250psi up to 1500psi

I think that 5 microns is very small its 0.005mm this is tiny no?

I am learnin slowly, thanks for your input!

 

[Essex]

Fatman, what brand nutrients do u use and do u use RO water?

 

[fatman7574]

Yes I use RO water. I mix my own nutrients. I am still working on a formulation that will work best for my drain to waste SOG grows with air atomized spraying. Using low ppm (EC) nutrients I am getting back in my drain a large percentage of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and iron I originally supplied in the nutrient solution. Spraying cyclic drain to waste with fine droplets, produces a waste water that seems to indicate a need to change the ratio of fertilizers as the methodology seems to indicate a much smaller requirement for calcium, magnesium and phosphorus as they are not being used as buffers.

That means actually back tracking down the evolutionary hydroponic nutrient trail. The advances in the mj nutrients over the last decade or so have been based upon recirculating reservoirs systems requirements rather than plant tissue samples. Therefore the concentration of the minerals used as buffers or that regularly precipitate have been adjusted to way beyond the plants nutrient needs so as to always have available the plants needs even when buffering takes place in the recirculating reservoir. That is one of the reasons for the high EC needs with modern mj specific nutrients. Commercial greenhouse growers of vegetables and ornamental growers have a better manner of adjusting their needs as they can do tissue samples of legal crops with impunity. The commercial growers using recirculating systems (typically NTF) tend to have huge, huge systems so the cost of doing water sample testing for nutrient concentrations is more tolerable than it would be for a home grower of mj.

There is not this need to supply more nutrients then the plants uptake needs with drain to waste where their is no recirculating reservoir where buffering takes place. This means going back to the old traditional hydroponic formulation from 30 to 40 years ago that were entirely based upon plant tissue samples. Those using recirculating reservoirs re stuck with "modern" mj formulations and the daily pH adjustments and such.

There is the problem that tissue samples on modern day mj plants are not in print anywhere that I am aware of. The closet available is on Canadian commercial Hemp plants. Not the same but closer then using agricultural plant crop tissue samples such as wheat or tomatoes.

 

[Essex]

I hate the fact that there is no real scientific testing in any field of the MJ plant, just misconseptions and hype from advertisers! I did hear Ionics nutes was quite good with TAG but this has HUGE buffers in it so am not quite convinced now reading ya last post.

About 8 years ago I had the complete nutrent uptake cycle on a bit of paper but lost a long time ago (dont know where from or how accurate but seemed good)

Are them type of nozzles I linked to OK in your opinion????

 

[OregonMeds]

Is this lab the kind that can do the testing you want Fatman?


https://www.rollitup.org/medical-marijuana-news/327004-genovations-laboratory-analytical-now-all.html#post4106754

 

[fatman7574]

I wasnt saying plastic, I wouldnt use plastic. what about nozzles like this,

http://www.normist-tr.com/menu.htm
http://www.amfog.com/mt_series.asp
http://www.mistingpros.com/Mist-Nozzles/
http://www.cloudburst.com/catalog/nozzles-plugs-c-21_30.html


Are any of these the correct type needed? these are mosty brass with stainless steel inserts? this is what I meen by cheap, under £10 each. most need over 250psi up to 1500psi

I think that 5 microns is very small its 0.005mm this is tiny no?

I am learnin slowly, thanks for your input!

They seem like the would work fine for a very high pressure system where you wnat a very small droplets size. H Just keep in mind that a very small droplet size produces less efficient growth than the larger 50 micron drop size is capable of producing, A small or a large micron systems set up at its most effiecent cyclic pattern wll not produce as much growth as fast as the 50 micron system set up at its most efficient cylic setting. Large droplets means oversaturation any time the sprayer is sparying due to the too large droplert size. Small droplet sizes require an over concentration of water in the chamber to provide the plants water needs but this limits nearly all air contact with the roots lowering plant root health and water uptake. Thi is relieved in part by cyclic spraying, but as this then lowers the times that the plants are recieving the required water they need when growing at a maximum rate the growth rate will be slower than with 50 micron spraying.


Yes 5 microns is small but it is not all that small as far as filtration is concerned. Consider it will remove things in the microscope size range. Smaller than can be seen by the human eye, but not as small as can be seen by an electron micrscope. 5 micron is a very typical filtration size for RO prefilters and carbon block filters used with RO filters.

Five (5) microns, short for 5 micrometers, is a unit of measurement equal to five millionth of a meter. A micron is 0.000195 of an inch.
A human hair is 40 to 120 microns in diameter.

Carbonates grow much easier if they are seeded. This means carbonate expand more readily on an existing precipitated carbonate particle then they will form as a new precipitate. What is that old expression: "Birds of a feather flock together." Eliminate as much of the seed stock as you can and you slow the process.

It is much harder for the first small carbonate particle to form on a surface then it is for the second, third and fourth particle to form on the first particle. So fine filtration is more beneficial than coarser filtration. I do use full size filters as used on RO filters not small coarser screens. The larger 10" filters have a very large surface area so they do not clog quickly and cause pressure drops. Plus there are a hugh number of sources for replacement filter elements at cheap costs.

 

[Essex]

I want a 50 micron mist as this is the whole point of TAG! I just thought the NASA spec was 5-50 microns but I will bow down to your superior knowledge as info is so scarce in this field.

So if I feed my nutes from a bucket into a 200 micron screen pre filter, then into my preasure washer, then through a 5 micron carbon filter into my NOZ tank, then through a pressure redusing valve, then my solanode valve, then my fire extinguisher with non-drip 50 micron stainless steel insert nozzles mounted in it.

This is all good???

 

[fatman7574]

I would put the outlet on the exit from the NOz tank. The main protection you need to provide is to your pressure regulator, valves, solenoid(s) and the nozzles. The tank will always have a carbonate build up problem no matter waht you do. Just put an extra tee fitting in at the inlet and out letsso you can occasionally add some acid to break down and remove the calcium carbonates (close inlet, use up all water in tank then slowly release air pressure from extra Tee valve, through the open valve pour in dilute acid until tank is full <lots of foam will come out of open valve>, then blow out tank with air by using the other Tees valve that should have your air snifter used for tank pre pressurizing, then add some some fresh water and blow it out).

 

[Essex]

Sweet m8, thanks for all your help!

Hope ya will give some more good advise on nutes/dialing in when its all built in few months, but at least I got it all planed now!

+million rep n karma

 

[zero1776]

was looking for a suitable atomizer and found these.http://www.bugpage.com/xcart/hudson-atomizer-ulv-fogger-w-flex-hose-99598.html Do you think they would work for a aero unit? Im looking to find a way to distribute the nutrient without as many components as a HP setup but still have the micron range right. Also you guys are adjusting the time between spray cycles and the length of time of the spray. Is there a sensor and adj. controller I could incorporate to keep a certain amount of atomized nutrient in the air a humidity sensor or moisture sensor that would turn on the sprayers when mist is low and off when the mist is at a proper level? I work in production so I would think this would be possible but have not seen a set up like this in use.

 

[OregonMeds]

I want a 50 micron mist as this is the whole point of TAG! I just thought the NASA spec was 5-50 microns but I will bow down to your superior knowledge as info is so scarce in this field.

So if I feed my nutes from a bucket into a 200 micron screen pre filter, then into my preasure washer, then through a 5 micron carbon filter into my NOZ tank, then through a pressure redusing valve, then my solanode valve, then my fire extinguisher with non-drip 50 micron stainless steel insert nozzles mounted in it.

This is all good???

[youtube]Tf15Nlyr5_k[/youtube]

 

[Essex]

was looking for a suitable atomizer and found these.http://www.bugpage.com/xcart/hudson-atomizer-ulv-fogger-w-flex-hose-99598.html Do you think they would work for a aero unit? Im looking to find a way to distribute the nutrient without as many components as a HP setup but still have the micron range right. Also you guys are adjusting the time between spray cycles and the length of time of the spray. Is there a sensor and adj. controller I could incorporate to keep a certain amount of atomized nutrient in the air a humidity sensor or moisture sensor that would turn on the sprayers when mist is low and off when the mist is at a proper level? I work in production so I would think this would be possible but have not seen a set up like this in use.

I was also wondering if it is posable to mesure the humidity and spray rather than using cycle timer.......

 

[zero1776]

I was also wondering if it is posable to mesure the humidity and spray rather than using cycle timer.......

Yeah it would make sense to have something able to control the spray in a on demand setup where it would keep the level at a optimum point throughout all the stages of growth. Of course you still would have to set what you consider optimum it would just adj. delivery as needed to keep it there throughout all stages of your grow.Im sure you could set up a plc and sensor input card with a output to run your mist system but would like some thing a little simpler that is still accurate. Im going to be looking.

 

[fatman7574]

Saturation of air is usually considered a humidity of 100%. However the saturation level is temperature dependent. That is why we have relative humidity readings and dry bulb temperature readings.

While It might be possible to control the cyclic spraying of a 50 micro droplet system pretty well with a relative humidity controller type thermostat arrangement, the problem is with a large droplet size the droplets if contacting the controller sensor would always saturation. With really small micro drops the controller would seldom ever consider the chamber 100% saturated. A 50 micron can be run 100% of the time as long as the chamber relative humidity is not up to saturation (100%). This could nean setting upa multiple of misters seperately controlled so that you could run as many as you need to run 100% of the time to maintain say 95% relative humidity (the max allowed by most controllers). But your talking very small nozzles unless you have quite large chambers. For a chamber like you mentioned earlier your talking a gallon or so per day. That would mean ideally using nozzles that spray only 750 or 100 ml per hour, and running constantly from 2 to 4 at a time depending on night or day, size of plants, plant room hunmidity, temperature, lighting, CO2 etc.

I know humidistat circuit boards are usually epoxy coated and you could coat your electrical connections. I am not sure I would trust the factory coating though. Fertilizer and circuit boards are not very compatable.