These are air only solenoids. I’ve ordered another solenoids for the water part, they are plastic ones. But they still in transit, hope to get them next week.
Yep, there will be even two water traps: one on the air compressor itself and another one on the main pressure reducer.
Pretty good idea, I’ll definitely try it after assemble! Thanks!
Yep, I’ve been thinking about making two parts chamber: an inner one from geotextile fablic and another one - external - from other material, probably a film as I said before. And make a hole between inner and outer walls 1-2 cm wide to allow evaporated moisture go up to canopy. Actually it is even possible to build some kind of automated lid from a humidity sensor + controller, a tube with two long slots and a step motor to control humidity inside the canopy part.
To the sad part: it appears these nozzles are not what I’ve ordered. I’ve asked for SU13 and SUE15, but these are definitely some other models. I’ve tried to figure out on what they are and seems like it’s some kind of SU25 and SUE25 which have much bigger air consumption. I’ve written to the supplier, will see that they can offer.
The same thing with compressor: even though my order was confirmed they called my back later and said that this compressor is not available anymore. Trying to order from an another supplier, hopefully get it on Feb, 3rd.
But light has to arrive in a few hours, delivery guy has already called me to check if I’m at home. Also most parts should arrive at the beginning of the next week: pressure regulators, water solenoids, esp32\stm32 controllers, relays and so on.
I have to finally make detailed scheme of the whole system and blueprints for the root chamber. I need to buy tubing and fittings so some kind of scheme is essential. Larry, what kind of tubes do you use, by the way? My nozzles fitting has collet fixture for 8 mm tubes.
I’ve been thinking about root chamber control, especially misting control. As I understand, humidity sensors don’t work reliable enough to trust them and there are not many options to control mist quality and even availability in overall.
One of the options I’ve heard about is idea to use sound sensors on the nozzles and check signal bursts: if they exist and comparable to the reference then the nozzle works. But this just protects from nozzle clogging or system dysfunction.
So does anyone tried to use a light beam (laser beam) and photo sensor for mist control? I believe good quality mist must have certain optical characteristics, for example, density. Wouldn’t it be better to use such sensor to control misting ON/OFF periods? Or is it over-complication and has no any sense?
Sorry @heathen, I have been in and out of the ER this week and am pretty wiped out and doped up. Mostly false alarms. Hint - never ever tell a nurse that you are having “minor” chest pain, and then try to explain that it is NOT a heart attack. They never believe you, freak out big time, arm wrestle you into a wheel chair and zip you off to the ER. You can then kiss the next 5 to 7 hours away while they do all sorts of $$$$ tests so they can tell you, no its not a heart attack after all, and yes it is exact;y what you thought it was. On the plus side, I now have some good drugs to go long with my home grown meds
Several things I want to comment on/reply to from your earlier posts, but I just took some of those good drugs and am getting too loopy at the moment. I will get back to you as soon as I can.
Oh boy am I in trouble. Actually its more like TROUBLE.
Ok, so that comment I made is very very bad advice. Please dont ignore chest pain and ALWAYS be honest with your healthcare providers.
That is from my daughter. She is an RN and she just read me the riot act big time for even thinking that. If she tells my wife I said that I may as well go ahead and have a heart attack. It will be less painful!!
PS - I tried blaming it on the drugs but she isnt buying that at all
Thanks! if you look closely, you can also see lots of smooth roots and some that look skinny and almost dried up.
I think I have these babies too close to the sides of the root chamber. In both plants, there are areas that look kind of bad but its where they are growing close to the sides. I think that is causing areas to stay too dry. Next time I will have them closer to the center.
Its really looking like you need a huge chamber for this to really work to peak efficiency. The roots like space, but mostly a nice even mist distribution.
How I have it is working pretty well over all though.
That might be worth doing if funds are available. In addition to clogging, that would also warn you of solenoid failure, and running out of air for any reason.
Interesting idea. Its not going to be easy to program though. The question would be what would you change when the reading changed? ON time, or OFF time, or both? Dont forget, its the roots that dictate the mist density based on fuzzy hairs - BUT - you need to judge things also based on what part of the grow cycle you are in.
For example - when the babies are first put in the torture chamber, you need to over water to help them adjust to the new environment. Then you want to cut back the flow, but not too much. You want them to head down at least as much as grow sideways, and preferably more. Then later you want to slowly taper down to get more fuzzies - BUT - the plants will be growing and the roots expanding and demanding more water, so they might be asking for more flow or no change at all.
In other words - its not the mist density that dictates how the roots grow. Its the roots that tell you what mist density they need.
I dont see any good way to take the human aspect out of that easily. You are going to need to make judgement calls at every step.
Still, it might be worth experimenting with if you have the programming talent. Its a very interesting idea.
Are you going to use that as a liquid storage tank or to get drunk when the roots all dry up or?
Nice!
LOL!! Looks good!
A few comments here. What do you expect as an average “room temp” surrounding the root chamber? Is it going to be in the same tent/room with the lights? Is it going to be at the same temp as the area where the plants are? If so, what temp do they prefer?
Remember, I have to heat my root chamber all year round. It is insulated from the grow space where the green parts of the plants are. The growing space needs to be near 80F, but the roots need to be under 70F. Thats why the insulated separation. The second consideration is that my “room temp” surrounding the root chamber is typically around 65F, but gets up to the hi 70’s in summer. My root chamber runs about 7-8 deg F colder than the room temp due to evaporative cooling. So it needs heating much of the year, and never needs extra cooling.
You will need to take all those factors into account.
Ive used a lot of different geo textiles in my RC hobby to build runways and for weed control and other odd ball things. Most types are porous, but to different degrees. They are also plastic coated. Im not sure how well they will cool in this situation. It might be worth testing before you buy a bunch or get too involved in the build. It may work great. If so, it would be very cleanable and re0usable. Should last forever - if it cools.
I tried testing the air in between my root chamber and the insulating outside walls and the humidity wasnt all that hi Only a point or two above that in the tent above. I was surprised. But after thinking about it, it made sense. The temps in there are often well into the upper 80’s F. That will lower the humidity a ton as the temps go up when the heater is on. This time of year it runs a lot.
That sucks! Hope you get it worked out.
Ok, hope I am caught up. If I missed anything let me know
And the very first misting test: https://youtu.be/vqVK9GJj_cY
It’s pretty hard to check misting as I experiment in a bathroom and it is pretty light-colored. But still.
The nozzles seems promising but need more tests. And the worst thing is that I don’t know their parameters. For example, the video above was recorded with flat fan internal mix pressure fed nozzle. When I put an order I’ve chosen two certain nozzles with certain characteristics. But I got something very different. This mist was generated with 0.7 bar water pressure (at the air pressure regulator from keg outside, need to buy a hydraulic gauge to check pressure right before nozzle) and 0.2 bar air pressure.
Any ideas on how to properly test nozzles and misting quality?
But in overall I need only chamber. Which is pretty big deal.
I’ve got micro-controller esp32 and played with it a couple of days. Never ever had any experience with embedded things from the inside. Funny. Here some results: https://youtu.be/vNPLMf8SNf4
Yeah, its impossible to clearly see the mist in a lighted room especially against a white or light background. When the camera was pointed toward that darker doorway, you could see some mist, but its hard to judge.
Best way is to have a totally dark room, and shoot the mist in front of a flat black background. Use an LED type light source - preferably a point source. The LED light on my phone seems to work very well if there are no other lights on.
You can also use one of those cat toy lasers, but I like the broader view the LED in the phone gives you. It also lets you see the larger droplets mixed into the mist.
You really need to have a chamber finished to see what its like inside the chamber. That will be very different from spraying into an open room.
The key test is hang time for the mist and the over all density. The mist density will decrease starting from the moment the nozzles turn off. How long that takes is a good indication.
Mist that hangs for 5 minutes or more is too “dry” - sub 5 micron according to atomizer. Other than that one data point, the rest is a judgement call.
You need to video the entire ON/OFF cycle and see how it looks with an LED light or the cat toy. The cat toy will tell you what parts of the chamber have good mist. If you shoot it down from the top, you can see the mist slowly (hopefully) disappear from the top down.
I think you could test this in a black plastic tote that is similar in size to your proposed chamber. It wont be ideal, but should give you a quick indication.
If your phone is water proof, just prop it up on one end - maybe behind the nozzle - and video the entre cycle with various ON/OFF times.
You should also be able to measure the liquid flow rate if you weight the tank before and after - if your scale is accurate enough. Or maybe fill initially with a measured amount and let it run until empty and time the number and length of the cycles. If you let it run long enough, you should be able to get a fairly close number.
Measuring air flow is going to be much more difficult and I have no good suggestions for that.
I posted a chart earlier that showed how long droplets of varying sizes traveled. That may give you a rough idea if you do the math based on the height of your chamber.
In the end, you will have to let the roots tell you if its close enough or not.
As usual for me, things are going good and bad. Actually more like good and soso.
The larger baby is doing very well. Her size is a good bit ahead of where the babies were on the last grow. I suspect it is largely due to me NOT leaving the nozzles turned off multiple times
I put the scrog screen in position, but neither one is quite big enough to use it yet, so Im still doing LST with weights and wires.
The roots are doing odd things. There are definite “zones” within the chamber. The top section is doing very well with lots of fuzzies and growth.
The middle sections on both babies are lagging way behind for some reason. Some of the pics make the roots look brown in that area, but they are still off white - just zero fuzzies.
The bottom zone of the bigger baby is doing great. Its spreading around the bottom of the chamber floor with lots of fuzzy hairs.
The smaller baby stopped growing down two weeks ago or so. The roots at the very bottom turned fuzzy, but refuse to go lower. They are just barely touching the bottom of the chamber. I have no clue why.
It was clear that the middle parts of the chamber were not getting enough mist, so I have been slowly increasing the flow rate with longer ON times. Im up to 1.1x70, and that seems to be helping some, but its slow.
Oddly, there are some super fuzzy sections mixed into the bad areas. Then there are areas that were super fuzzy that are now air pruned.
Im thinking its primarily a problem with the large upper parts of the root mass messing up the mist distribution, causing the air pruning, plus having the net pots too close to the outer edge - maybe.
I also think I really should have tried harder to get the inverted ice cream cone shape to the roots instead of the upright cone shape I have now.
Forgot about the PH differential between the rez and the siphon tank. I changed the position of the heater outside the root chamber so that it doesnt blow directly towards the siphon tank. That has lowered the average temp of the water there by several degrees. Since then, the PH differential has been down to 0.1 to 0.2 as a max. Thats much easier to manage.
It occurs to me that changing the heater position has also changed which parts of the root chamber get the most heat. Makes me wonder if that is playing into some of the air pruning?
The fabric is NOT 100% light proof. Id guess more like 80%-90% or so. If you put one over your head, you can easily see light through it.
And yes, thats part of the reason for the foam outer walls - to block all the light, plus it makes the heater more efficient. Actually, the heater wouldnt work at all without the outer walls.
My outer foam walls are not 100% air tight though. I want the humid air to be able to leave the space. I have small gaps in various places along the bottom and top edges for airflow.
If you want to do rectangular chambers, you could probably order the larger size, and remove the bottom. Then you could easily form it into a rectangle. You might need an additonal pot to make up the bottom - cut the bottom out, and spread the side out to form a rectangle.
My chamber is made by cutting the bottom out of one pot, then hot gluing that one on top of another pot to get the height. I am a terrible sewer, so hot glue worked for me. I used scraps to make access hatches by gluing velcro to patches and to the chamber walls to form easily removable hatches.
aaarrrggghhh!! and other bad words. I have discovered that there are more ways to screw up than just leaving the nozzles turned off. Try leaving the HUGE access hatch to the root chamber open when the lights are on.
Being hi as f%ck and fighting kidney stones and being on narcotics are not smart things to do while gardening. Or rather they combine to make you stupid as sh$t.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I have no idea what day this is in the grow and dont care and I dont think it matters any more at this point.
The damage isnt nearly as bad as earlier times when I left the nozzles off, but its still going to set things back to some degree.
This is shaping up to be my worst ever grow as far as yield. One of the three plants was male, another one is a stunted runt that refuses to grow, and now this.
Crap. Im going to take a nap and more dugs and hope this is all a bad drug induced dream.
Ah. A good nap and more good drugs and Im much better now
The plants will survive, but the root damage is significant. If this follows the same pattern as the previous root damage episodes, it should add about a week to the harvest time and some interesting leaf damage should show up in the next few days.
The big girl is actually looking jsut fine so far, but the runt is taking it much harder. She had the smallest roots to begin with and so will be hit hardest by the loss of root mass.
On the plus side, its just possible that this “drought stress” may actually increase my final yield over what it would have been
Fortunately, I have plenty of meds on hand to last me a good long time, so even if I loose the entire crop, its not a total disaster.
