The Quest for a Better Aero!

I would only suggest that you compensate in the mist timing, because even a tiny flow of air will have a significant drying effect on the fine root hairs, compared to a sealed environment. If you have to over mist to compensate for temps inside the chamber, your root hairs may suffer. I don't have temp issues myself, and havn't given it much though. If you are after the perfect enviroment, wind tunnel root chamber is probably not the best answer. Why not have your pods/chambers partially submersed in water themselves? Assuming you have a gutter you could drain tap water into on your deck, run cold tap water through every so often, and I bet that would cool the inside just nice. I may fiddle around with this idea in the future. I just added a over-head misting system to my outdoor greenhouse. Been looking for new ways to use my new hobby!

Mike Young said:

I would only suggest that you compensate in the mist timing, because even a tiny flow of air will have a significant drying effect on the fine root hairs, compared to a sealed environment. If you have to over mist to compensate for temps inside the chamber, your root hairs may suffer. I don't have temp issues myself, and havn't given it much though. If you are after the perfect enviroment, wind tunnel root chamber is probably not the best answer. Why not have your pods/chambers partially submersed in water themselves? Assuming you have a gutter you could drain tap water into on your deck, run cold tap water through every so often, and I bet that would cool the inside just nice. I may fiddle around with this idea in the future. I just added a over-head misting system to my outdoor greenhouse. Been looking for new ways to use my new hobby!

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LOL- I just asked my friend who works in solar water plumbing, and he tells me the tap water out here is 76f outta the ground- not to mention the run of pipe outside to the second floor... I could try to use my chiller- and recirculate cold water in such a manner, but at this point I am going to try to insulate as well as possible, and see how the misting does on it's own before anything else. I think worrying about it too much is pointless until I know what I really am dealing with. In one sense though, since you say any air flow dries out roots, and misting extra to cool has an adverse effect by wetting them, then perhaps extra misting and small air flow combined would both cool the chamber, and also cancel the negative effects of eachother out?

One more thing- apparently we can mist less at night, but is it actually better for the plants, or just a convenience to save nutes. If it's good for the plants by not letting them get too wet, then how are most people achieving this. All I can think of to do with these 422 timers is have a completely separate timer for day and one for night, and either a timed switch or photocell that kicks one timer in or the other?

A basic 24hr timer can turn the cycle timer off several times during the night.

After droplet size range, over or undermisting has more of an effect on root hair production than chamber temp/RH. I would concentrate on getting the mist right before worrying about anything else as it will play a part in the chamber temp and RH as well

Alright, you leave me with no choice... PetFlora, for the love of god please buy an accumulator & solenoids so we can bring an end to this madness. The grass is greener on this side of the fence. I've seen your posts from quite a few other sites & youtube. You put alot of information out there, alot more than most of us, I believe. And it would be alot better if you just made the switch instead of swimming up current all the time. Try it, and after you get it dialed in, think your old way was better.... By all means go back to it, and post why it's better. That would be an argument worth having.

Mike, you should know by now that he enjoys the challenge of doing things the not-so-easy way, but if he does eventually weaken.. i doubt he`ll go back
An extended heatwave would be hard to manage with any hydro system let alone hp aero. If its any help, i`ve had a chamber peak at 76F with 95% RH with no detrimental effect on the root hairs.
I`m glad someone is getting a summer, we had a cold snap here last night that dipped my outdoor chamber to 57F.

PetFlora said:

Too funny! I am looking forward to your new grow. Are you going to do a journal?

As you know, I am not a naysayer of accum just stubbornly pragmatic about seeing how close I can come without one. Consider this, last grow, and for the first time (4th attempt/grow), I was finally seeing fluffy roots (looked like airy cotton candy- very delicate) and root hairs, so I was on the right track when the heat wave blew me up. So I hope you all realize that I need to see this through, but can't until after our long hot summer, ~ late September.

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^^^^^^ I love this guy... hehe Matter of fact if I wasn't so broke I was gonna offer to buy you a $60 accum tank- but now I realize it would ruin all yer fun... +rep for reminding me of the Wiley E. Coyote in " The Roadrunner"- that must be all ACME stuff your running out there...- no disrespect meant btw.. Just chuckling over here- thanks bro... -hth

Atomizer said:

A basic 24hr timer can turn the cycle timer off several times during the night.

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I complicate things to the point of stupidity- sometimes overlooking the obvious... And here I was thinking I needed 2 expensive timers, a photocell, and a relay to switch it back and forth... LOL! So, I was reading the post you made last year about a mains powered air compressor, and it had a familiar ring to the concept I was thinking of about using the mains pressure for a nute pump- I guess I'm not the only one... Although your idea would work alot simpler and better than mine with just air, nice idea man...

Trichy Bastard said:

I complicate things to the point of stupidity- sometimes overlooking the obvious... And here I was thinking I needed 2 expensive timers, a photocell, and a relay to switch it back and forth... LOL! So, I was reading the post you made last year about a mains powered air compressor, and it had a familiar ring to the concept I was thinking of about using the mains pressure for a nute pump- I guess I'm not the only one... Although your idea would work alot simpler and better than mine with just air, nice idea man...

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You could go that route if you feel rich enough but a few breaks in the misting at night is all you need. I designed a mains water powered nute pump a while back, it was a simple 4 solenoid design but very inefficient and would`ve wasted a lot of fresh water. I got the air compressor built but instead of water i cheated by grafting a 3/4hp light commercial refrigeration compressor onto a shop compressor tank

Atomizer said:

You could go that route if you feel rich enough but a few breaks in the misting at night is all you need. I designed a mains water powered nute pump a while back, it was a simple 4 solenoid design but very inefficient and would`ve wasted a lot of fresh water. I got the air compressor built but instead of water i cheated by grafting a 3/4hp light commercial refrigeration compressor onto a shop compressor tank

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That's plain funny, we must be smoking out of the same stock... Look what I wrote in post#95 of this thread:
"I then thought about making a 3" sealed pvc pressure chamber with fittings connected to a single loop of surgical tubing inside. The idea was through a coordinated cycling of 4 seperate solenoids it would function as a heart type pump where it would allow the chamber to fill with premix nutes, that solenoid would close and another would open allowing the surgical tubing to fill with tap water at 90psi which would pressurize the nute solution in the pipe through pressure equalibrium until another solenoid opened to the sprayers all while keeping the tap water physically separate from the nute solution. After the spray cycle completed- the surgical tubing solenoid would close and yet another solenoid on the opposite end of the surgical tubing would open and the pressure of the surgical tubing wanting to return to it's normal size would eject the formerly pressurized tap water which would create a vacuum to suck in another batch of nutes and repeat. Of course there was alot of coordinated precision solenoid timing and 1:1 wasted tap water for nutes." -So Atom- how close was this idea to yours?

Anyway- I have a pullpin? timer that can be set to a minimum cycle of 15m/on 15m/off It is not very precision- off by1-5 minutes each 15m pin, but I bet I can set it to cycle the 422 to add 15m of off time every 30 minutes starting just before sundown and stop around sun up. Does that sounds about right?

Its a good while ago but iirc it was a 3 chamber design, the middle section contained air at atmospheric pressure until the mains water compressed it ( turning it into a pneumatic piston of sorts) which then acted on the nutes in the chamber at the opposite end. It would have been easy enough to fabricate using schedule 80 8-bolt flange fittings to clamp butyl rubber membranes either side of the central air chamber.

The pull-pin timers are servicable but not all that great in the accuracy department. Initially just set a couple of 30min off periods during the night. If the roots looked soaked first thing in the morning try 3x 30mins off periods spread throughout the night and check again the following morning. If they are still wet, gradually increase the off periods upto an hour each.

So I've pretty much finished my room. I'd hoped to have had it running by now, but no such luck. Here's a vid of my progress. Although I know that without any plants in it, it's just another vid of an HP system that "could" be awesome, but without plants it's still feeding the "HP hype" machine. One that I, and a few others as well would like to put to rest. Soon enough, I hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1yvDBxqYY

Mike Young said:

So I've pretty much finished my room. I'd hoped to have had it running by now, but no such luck. Here's a vid of my progress. Although I know that without any plants in it, it's just another vid of an HP system that "could" be awesome, but without plants it's still feeding the "HP hype" machine. One that I, and a few others as well would like to put to rest. Soon enough, I hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1yvDBxqYY

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Looks really good bro, very clean and professional... I can't wait to be as far along as you... One question as I went with the biocontrols nozzles- did you get the low flow .08 or the ultra low flow .04??? I use those dig nozzles in my garden to mist my basil and other herbs and they do put a nice mist at my 90psi main pressure. I'm sure that there is nothing to fear that this stuff won't be what it's all cracked up to be. It's gonna rock, and all your diligence and hard work is about to pay off I'd suspect. I just started thinking about the nutes and stuff, as it's the other piece of the puzzle as Atomizer says- more fun. Props Mike, I am really excited for you.

By the way, I see you went with tree farmer's recommendations for solenoids, am I right? It looks like you got the aluminum ones- they look really pimp. Is there any concerns with aluminum and nutes? Also, is that the 422 flip/flop timer? My question is that will it be capable of fractions of a second, or 1 second is as low as it goes. Did you find any better deal than the $91 price tag? got a link if so?

Trichy Bastard said:

By the way, I see you went with tree farmer's recommendations for solenoids, am I right? It looks like you got the aluminum ones- they look really pimp. Is there any concerns with aluminum and nutes? Also, is that the 422 flip/flop timer? My question is that will it be capable of fractions of a second, or 1 second is as low as it goes. Did you find any better deal than the $91 price tag? got a link if so?

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The solenoids are SS, and the timer does well under 1 sec. I believe it's 1/10 sec increments. I payed 91 + another 12 for the sockets. I got both, cause I didn't know which one I was gonna use. I can't remember which of the two bio nozzles I chose. They have a number 3 on them. May need to borrow those tiny calipers to measure the orifice.

LOL- wow stainless, no wonder they really accenuate your setup so nicely. I have a feeling you got the higher flowrate biocontrols- thats the only logical reason they're spitting out more than the cheapo digs? Well, it'll be fun watching you and your hitec FAG grow with pod racers nozzles... hehe I just was itchin to use some of those old terms from podracer's thread, and I'm totally joking man...

Ya had me there for a second. I've never actually seen podracers thread. I didn't even realize it until now, because I got the impression it was missing some key elements, and I never thought about it again. I've certainly heard it referenced in a flora vs atomizer and or bob discussion.