Testing the Aerolife True HPA AA (Air Atomized) System -First run
- Thread starter Trichy Bastard
- Start date
Lots of variables to keep testing, good thing lettuce seedlings are cheap. I'm trying 4 seconds on, 2 minutes off now. Wanted to give a few seconds for the compressor to get going since I don't have a tank.
TB, since you are considering that the mist might not be of optimal size, have you or are you planning to try and adjust it? I believe you mentioned adjusting the siphon height, how will you do that? When I purchased the nozzle, the Aerolife person mentioned that I could adjust droplet size by changing the psi, but I guess that will have to wait until I get a tank with a regulator.
Thanks again.
TB, since you are considering that the mist might not be of optimal size, have you or are you planning to try and adjust it? I believe you mentioned adjusting the siphon height, how will you do that? When I purchased the nozzle, the Aerolife person mentioned that I could adjust droplet size by changing the psi, but I guess that will have to wait until I get a tank with a regulator.
Thanks again.
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Yes, been playing around with it, -quite tedious. The air pressure changes the mist size and pattern as well as the liquid siphon flowrate, so it's an issue trying to maintain both in the correct range, especially all by eye and root feedback- which takes time. The siphon height traditionally also affects flowrate but it appears on these nozzles it has little effect so that's another thing to contend with. I have considered hooking up a pressure feed with solenoid for the liquid side as well, but no idea what sort of results that will yield. I've even considerd cutting off the ultrasonic tip of the nozzle thinking it may have a good part to do with the final droplet breakdown and size, but I don't want to mutilate it permanantly without knowing if it would for sure make a positive difference.
What I did to adjust siphon height, is use a small lunchbox sized igloo cooler installed with an adjustable float valve gravity fed from a reservoir that maintains a certain liquid level. The siphon lines drop into this cooler and I can adjust the siphon height by elevating the cooler, and fine tune by adjusting the float level... It actually works pretty well for this purpose and insulates the nutrients from getting too warm.
For what it's worth since noise isn't much an issue for me, I am just using my craftsman air compressor to feed the solenoid and nozzles, which has a 3 gallon storage tank and regulator.
Roots still drying out with a 4 second spray and 2 minute off. Looks like not enough root mass to use that fine mist effectively. Interestingly, the plants that are sitting in nutrients have "water" root development, but nice root hair development just above the surface of the solution. Makes me think there is enough moisture and humidity in the root chamber to support root hairs. Could be from the evaporation from the solution and the confinement of the PVC coupler.
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Looks like you might have transplanted from soil. While you can get this to work, I personally found it's hard to get the roots to adapt to the big change very easily...
I noticed the same thing, after sulking for a while the plants tend to ignore the soil roots and just grow new ones from scratch. Clones/cuttings are the best option, plants that have been in grown using a wet hydro method (DWC/F&D) take longer to adapt but nowhere near as long as ex-soil plants.
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Okay, so I have been dilligently playing with settings and times. I have added some strips of closed cell adhesive foam (like the kind to insulate around a door) around the lid to attempt to ensure no fresh air is coming in to dry the roots from the lid. In the following pic you can see that the roots higher up on the netpot are looking dry, so it makes me think there is still some dry air coming in from the top, but I am not sure. I have been making slow steady adjustments to the timings and right now am actually using 1.5s mist pulses with 9.5 minute pause times. I am slowly increasing the pause times in 30s increments every 2-3 days. One thing I think is making things harder is I have not cut in my additional nighttime pause timer which means the roots are getting too wet at night in comparison to the daytime. I will probably fix this today before making any other adjustments on timings. Additionally, all the stress on the plant while I dial in the settings has caused it to "catch" powdery mildew. The yellowing is in part due to that, as well as still running .2 ec. I didn't want to introduce another variable while dialing in the timings, plus powdery mildew feasts on new growth. However I will probably raise the ec to around 2.5 today when I refill my res. Right now 5 gallons of nutes are lasting well over a week- maybe closer to 2 weeks.
If anybody has any input or suggestions I would like to hear it. I think I will eventually lose this plant but have a good amount of knowledge how to get the next plant up to par much quicker now. It is taking much less misting than I'd originally thought. Very different working with such a small chamber, I am starting to think that the airspace in these conditions cannot be linearly adjusted by just using the same ratios of mist as would be in a larger chamber, and requires it's own special condition settings. Perhaps there is some other variable I am missing though.
If anybody has any input or suggestions I would like to hear it. I think I will eventually lose this plant but have a good amount of knowledge how to get the next plant up to par much quicker now. It is taking much less misting than I'd originally thought. Very different working with such a small chamber, I am starting to think that the airspace in these conditions cannot be linearly adjusted by just using the same ratios of mist as would be in a larger chamber, and requires it's own special condition settings. Perhaps there is some other variable I am missing though.
Ester
Active Member
Greetings. Good to see your still at it. Is this cutting is from this image?
From what I'm looking at and have read the plants leaves are crying for help; shorter cycle times at a lower psi to increase droplet size. 140 ppm seems low and I would try doubling that.
For 24 hours try 30 psi at 1 sec burst every min and double the ec on there to 0.42 and cover the tops of those net pots so they reflect light. Give her a try and let us know. Best wishes.
From what I'm looking at and have read the plants leaves are crying for help; shorter cycle times at a lower psi to increase droplet size. 140 ppm seems low and I would try doubling that.
For 24 hours try 30 psi at 1 sec burst every min and double the ec on there to 0.42 and cover the tops of those net pots so they reflect light. Give her a try and let us know. Best wishes.
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Hey Ester, it is actually a new cutting as my original cuttings became sickly as I was testing. This one has a bad case of powdery mildew and it's hard to differentiate it's effects from the rest. I agree the e/c is low, but I was mainly focusing on what gets decent roots this round. I am going to try higher ec, higher air pressure, and less pause times per Atomizer's suggestions. I figure it's worth a try as I was going to write the plant off due to the powdery mildew anyway- it's covered the whole plant by now. It will be interesting to see if this thing can recover or not.Greetings. Good to see your still at it. Is this cutting is from this image?
From what I'm looking at and have read the plants leaves are crying for help; shorter cycle times at a lower psi to increase droplet size. 140 ppm seems low and I would try doubling that.
For 24 hours try 30 psi at 1 sec burst every min and double the ec on there to 0.42 and cover the tops of those net pots so they reflect light. Give her a try and let us know. Best wishes.
oceangreen
Well-Known Member
this method is intense
Interesting to hear that sealing the chamber is a big factor, but that's great if you can reduce the volume of nutes needed. What is the pressure and cfm you are currently providing to your Aerofog nozzle? I'm using the little tankless compressor (looks identical to the compressor in the Aerolife videos), I'm starting to wonder if that is adequate. Thanks.
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
From the pictures the Aerolife founder showed me, the little compressor can and will grow plants. The noise is enough to deter most people I'd assume, expecially that it must come on every mist cycle. I was using 30 psi, but am now playing in the 60 psi range. I still am not getting results to write home about, but pretty much expected this problem with such a small chamber and the fact the nozzles natively spray a smaller micron mist than we'd like to have here. I may soon throw a different nozzle in the same chamber just to see if I can figure out if the issue is more in the chamber size or the nozzle, perhaps it's just a combination of the two. For what it's worth, the founder's pics are better than I have achieved. He was using longer cycles if I can remember something like 20 seconds every 10 minutes or perhaps even longer. The thing is I know that is oversaturating the roots and it must be making up for the fact the mist droplets are too small. I don't really want to go there in my testing just because I know it's not optimal. If I can perhaps find the right short settings, then I would be getting the best results possible, but I am starting to lose confidence at this point and may just go with his settings and show what they can do.
I agree that their results are probably a wetting/drying cycle (that I've learned from these threads is akin to a version of flood/drain) rather than an optimal aeroponic cycle. The compressor is surprisingly quiet, it's a pretty low-powered airbrush compressor. The nozzle spraying is actually more noticeable with its higher frequency.
What is your major concern with a small chamber, temperature or control of moisture?
Hope you can keep us apprised of alternative nozzles if you do change.
I know you're trying to keep this on topic of the Aerolife system, but I hope you don't mind me asking about the use of rotary/centrifugal atomizers. I've seen this mentioned in some of the other threads, but then it doesn't go further. I saw the video of a guy who took a Dremel type tool and disk to make a fine mist, but was also wondering if something like these humidifiers might work. I have a couple of e-mails to the vendors, but haven't heard back yet.
http://www.trioniaq.com/products/index.aspx?prod=residential_AES_707U
What is your major concern with a small chamber, temperature or control of moisture?
Hope you can keep us apprised of alternative nozzles if you do change.
I know you're trying to keep this on topic of the Aerolife system, but I hope you don't mind me asking about the use of rotary/centrifugal atomizers. I've seen this mentioned in some of the other threads, but then it doesn't go further. I saw the video of a guy who took a Dremel type tool and disk to make a fine mist, but was also wondering if something like these humidifiers might work. I have a couple of e-mails to the vendors, but haven't heard back yet.
http://www.trioniaq.com/products/index.aspx?prod=residential_AES_707U
indrhrvest
New Member
I have a 1HP Rotary Atomizer I sell ya... about the only thing it proved good for was keeping my back yard deck cool..
Was that the Proptec I saw mentioned on another thread? What were your issues with the unit for aeroponics?
indrhrvest
New Member
I never used it, I just ran the motor and did the math on the electrical usage and determined it would be overly expensive to use.
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
My fear in the smaller chamber is that the air volume doesn't allow the mist to properly mix and disperse before hitting roots, sidewalls, etc. Having some airspace really helps for this. It is even more important for a high pressure hydraulic setup, but I had hopes that the air atomising nozzle would do better because of it's mixed air spray, however the mist still needs enough room in the chamber to mix. I find there are wetter and dryer spots on the roots, which won't give good consistent roothairs.
We've probably all thought about the centrifigul atomizers, but the problem seems to be getting them to spray around the chamber evenly and with the correct sized mist. It might be possible, but I have yet to see anyone make it work. Since the other 2 common methods of atomization work, it's just easier to go that route. Even using those technologies, there is still alot to initially getting it right.
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Ok guys, I'm back from Europe, had a blast... Hoping to start the new AA chamber build as early as this week. Hopefully it will revive the aero threads.
Thanks Jsamuel, you seem to be doing good with your setup and that's what matters most. Aero takes alot of research and patience in the beginning to understand the concepts which are practically counter-intuitive and opposed to mainstream thought on the subject in my opinion to get good results. It's a real fun hobby if you are into innovating and tinkering and being different and cutting edge, but if your goal is to get good results and up and running quickly, I'd recommend a different method. I am really excited to put my new knowledge into this new AA design and see how it works out.
Thanks Jsamuel, you seem to be doing good with your setup and that's what matters most. Aero takes alot of research and patience in the beginning to understand the concepts which are practically counter-intuitive and opposed to mainstream thought on the subject in my opinion to get good results. It's a real fun hobby if you are into innovating and tinkering and being different and cutting edge, but if your goal is to get good results and up and running quickly, I'd recommend a different method. I am really excited to put my new knowledge into this new AA design and see how it works out.