Demon Genetics auto CBD aeroponic grow

anon32470837 · May 18, 2020, 12:16am

That sounds like an excellent starting plan.

Im going to use motors, controllers, power supplies, etc, that I have on hand. Im debating about ordering one of those disks or not. I will probably start with a DIY disk of some sort if I can come up with a decent design for one. Im currently thinking of using a 6" fine tooth saw blade I have on hand, and bending the teeth up for the water to hit. The only down side is it will probably need some serious balancing, but I have tools for that.

Those humidifier disks - do you remember if the paper had a spec for the gaps in the rim? Guess I need to re-read that thing. I seem to remember them drilling holes or using a lazer cutter for something?

Thanks! Im reasonably happy with them at this point. They are nice and white everywhere and have good fuzzies in a lot of places. Not nearly 100% fuzzy, but I think thats a really tough goal. I would be very happy to hit 75%. I think Im still around 50% or a bit less for total fuzzies on the big girl and maybe 20-30% on the mutant. I expect things to get better as I continue to lower the flow rate.

This is a much better result than on the last grow

heathen · May 18, 2020, 7:04am

I’ve finally read that papers with rotation atomizing. Actually, I have a number of questions and doubts about all of it, but for now: if the disk is set at the bottom then particles should go up, correct? With centrifugal force liquid should go sideways, so seems they believe that after that drops will go up.

According to papers they have “watering” and “oxygenation” stages: like 4 minutes for watering and then 10+ minutes for oxygenation. So no constant density medium as well…

And I wouldn’t say the root picture they have looks great… at least in comparison with @anon32470837’s ones

The temperature suppositions are looking slightly weak: did they actually test their system? For example, I have 22-25 C in-room temperature, and I don’t think that evaporation is able to reduce it to 16-18 degrees required.

Motor lifetime also looks pretty weak: 2000 hours is pretty small value. Even if it works 25% of the day (as they assume) then it is less than a year of work.

But from the other side the system is much simpler and cheaper than AAA. It has a backup, and probably it worth to consider a LPA backup system for the main AAA as well. When reading that paper I’ve got an idea of a watch-dog with a simple micro-switch with leaf on a screw-regulated spring (to set a minimum pressure the switch need to have to ON), so it can be put on the mist stream way and will be pressed on normal conditions but if there is no air stream (no at all or no enough pressure, clogging, solenoids failure etc) then it will not be switched on and the system will get a signal that something is wrong.

Anyway, I would love to see a test system results!

anon32470837 · May 18, 2020, 8:15am

The disk they are using has a fan blade/impeller built into the bottom of the disk. The way the module is built, that fan blows air from under the disk, which is then forced to go around the disk and blow upwards - carrying the droplets with it.

Yeah, they obviously didnt listen to Atomizer on that one! Way too long a wet cycle and too long to dry out.

LOL those roots didnt look all that bad. Thats assuming they were actually white. They look smooth though, like normal LPA roots, which is what you would expect from that long an ON/off cycle.

That part I believe. My root chamber relies on evaporative cooling the same way theirs does. I routinely get 7 to 10 deg F temperature drop inside the chamber. Im forced to run a heater even in the late spring/early summer when night time temps drop. I like to keep my root temps between 71F max and 68F min.

Yeah, they chose a cheap motor. A quality brushless motor will last years - IF - you can protect the bearing, magnets, shafts, etc etc from all that salty mist. The system will need to be kept in balance too or you will go through bearing fast.

Thats not a bad idea. Probably a lot more reliable than the one Im using - listening to the sound of the nozzles!

anon32470837 · May 21, 2020, 10:07am

Hey @ReikoX, I just had an off the wall thought. You commented before that you thought maybe the size of the root chamber/pot etc could have an effect on yield. Im wondering if it could also have an effect on how soon an auto goes into flowering?

So far, every auto Ive grown has taken significantly longer to get to harvest than what was advertised. I have been thinking that the delays in flowering were primarily due to my stressing the plants nearly to death - repeatedly.

But what if it has something to do with root development? I just recently noticed that it looks like the plants dont really take off growth wise, until the roots hit bottom in my chamber. After they hit bottom, they really start to grow much faster.

That could just be coincidence, but it made me wonder if plants in smaller or especially shallower pots, might tend to mature faster? Im thinking the roots get to the bottom and decide, thats all there is. Its as far as we roots can go, so lets match top side growth to this size roots?

In other words - the size of the root space tells the plant how big it can grow, which in turn determins how long it will take an auto to get to that size.

Im only a little baked…

ReikoX · May 21, 2020, 2:57pm

It’s usually cultivar specific, but my observation is similar to yours.

anon32470837 · May 24, 2020, 9:15am

Day 40 on the 30:1 and day 20 something for the mutant.

Actually, the 30:1 plant is also showing some mutant oddities.

It slate so Im just going to throw up some pics of the bud sites developing on the 30:1. Lots of cool looking purple

anon32470837 · May 25, 2020, 4:26am

Here are a few root and plant pics from today.

The mutant is starting to flower - I think. It is so screwed up its hard to tell for sure!

This is a bud site - I think!

Whats amazing to me is how great the roots look!

There is a net pot somewhere in there, but I want to poin tout to @heathen and @TexanMD some of the roots are looking very different from each other. In this close up shot you can see some air pruning on the left side where the shoots are not getting enough mist. and a few places where they are still smooth.

The nozzle is on the right side of these roots and spraying somewhat directly on the roots - more directly so than the other plant.

If we look closely at the lower part of those roots, there is more variation visible in different places as far as the degree of smooth vrs fuzzy, and a reduction in total fuzzy’s.

Here is the 30:1 plant. Its doing much better as far as leaves, buds etc, but it still has some mutant stuff showing up. The roots on it also look pretty darn good over all.

Its roots look great over all, but they also vary from top to bottom and left to right and front to back.

Here is a closer look at one section. You can easily see the differences in root structure from one side to the other. The right side is opposite to the nozzle and will be getting the least mist and no direct spray. The far left is getting some direct spray. Note the smooth roots, then fuzzy roots, the smoother but still with fuzzies. The roots are also more dense on the left side.

Here is a shot of the roots on the floor. These roots have the most mist density and longest hang time being on the bottom. All the big drops fall here, plus eventually, all the small ones too. Its interesting to see the variation in fuzzy’s from left to right and in the middle.

By the way - any areas that look brownish in the pics are not really brown. Its a matter of contrast with the camera. The fuzzy hair sections are so white, the camera makes the smooth parts look brown in comparison. It cant handle that wide a range of contrast.

The main take aways for me are:

The Delavan nozzles work pretty well firing up from the bottom. Much better than any other location I have tried. I might actually win the Eat The Nozzles contest this time - maybe!
My mist environment is in the ball park over all, but there is still a good bit of variation from top to bottom in the chamber and different places in the chamber, and around the roots are getting too much or too little mist. In other words, I dont have perfect coverage or uniform mist distribution in the chamber.

Im still pretty pleased over all with how the roots are developing and how the system is functioning.

anon32470837 · May 25, 2020, 9:43am

Forgot to post the current stats.

Chamber volume = 55 gallons
2ea nozzles running at 1.4 sec ON x 48 sec OFF. Actually one nozzle is running at 47 seconds off and the other one at 49 sec off.
Combined flow rate is 2.8 ml/cycle, for a total of 4.9 liters/day. This timing works out to 0.051 ml/cycle/gallon and ,092 liters/day/per gallon.

Those are all in the ball park for what Atomizer recommends. Im a little low for ml/cycle and maybe a tad hi on liters/day, but not by much. So Im going to try 1.5 sec ON x 51.5 sec off. That will get me to 3 ml/cycle with the same 4.89 liter/day flow rate.

We will see…

heathen · May 25, 2020, 9:55am

That’s pretty interesting. Seems you are going with the upper limit for the full grown plants. Do you remember my spreadsheet with flowrates? I’ve put some basic calculations to the header: my chamber is twice as big as yours, and according to the flowrate from 0,00528 ml min to 0,01585 ml max per liter it gives from 5.46 to 10.92 liters per day. So for your chamber it would give from 2.7 to 5.4 liters per day rough.

Update: Have sent the message before finished.

Did you try to reduce flowrates? Did you try to measure how much you plants eats (comparing in/out nutrients weights)?

anon32470837 · May 25, 2020, 10:18am

Thats what I have been doing since day one. I started out at a much higher flow rate and much shorter off times. Thats necessary early on to help the new roots adapt to the system. After the first week or so, I started slowly increasing the off times while playing with ON times, siphon height, and air pressure to adjust hang time and the amount of visible wetness.

Ive been letting the roots tell me if Im going in the right direction, but that takes time. Especially when you are playing with several variables at the same time. I make a change, then wait several hours to maybe even a whole day and see how the roots look. Then make another change depending on that look.

These babies are close to 3/4 of the way done if the grower specs are correct. I think they are going to run long though.

Thats one of the points I dont think add up with Atomizers recommendations. if you are providing a “full chamber of mist” early, why isnt that same full chamber ok later on? Do you under mist early and not fill the chamber? Or do you over fill the chamber later in the grow?

Once the chamber is full, why would it need to change as long as you kept it full with sufficient hang time?

The only way to do that is to set the on time to “fill the chamber”, then change the off time to increase the liters/day. But that means changing the wet dry time ratio and changes the environment.

Maybe. I need sleep

I have no good way to measure the run off with my current setup, so I have no clue on that. I havent actually measured the flow rates from the nozzles either. Not with any accuracy anyway. They seemed in the ball park, but I couldnt get any closer than that at the time.

Those numbers are based on the info provided by Delavan and that graph I did above.

heathen · May 25, 2020, 2:51pm

I do it with scales: just measure the weight of the water in the beginning then run system for some time and then measure water weight again. The difference is very precise flow rate. I usually put a kitchen scales under my water keg, measure weight, turn scales off, then run system for a few hours, turn the scales on and move the keg off taking a negative weight: in this case it will measure both values in the same position, so no calibration issues.

If your run off accumulate in some kind of reservoir then you can do the same. It is actually pretty interesting to check nutrients solution consumption during the day and night cycles. They should be different.

I see it like that: A chamber need some amount of mist, let’s name it “density”. New-germinated plants has small roots and consume relatively low amount of liquid but then they starting to grow and need more liquid. To contain the same density and allow them to have enough water supply it is necessary to increase misting cycles amount or duration. Like nutrients in soil with the only difference is that mist is both a medium and nutrients solution.

Of course an explanation above is just an attempt to invent some basis for that idea and can be absolutely wrong.

anon32470837 · May 26, 2020, 9:25am

I love your spreadsheet! Much better than my crude one.

I might be able to make that work. It would need to have a long baseline run because I dont trust my scale all that much. It doesnt seem at all accurate with small weight differences.

I keep intending to rig up a small rez to do something like that with one of my precision scales, but I have been motivated enough. My good scales only go up to 5 pounds/2.5kg ±. I think my rez weighs more like 75 pounds when full!

Ive been re-reading various Atomizer posts about flow rates, etc. I need to do that again when Im more rested. I keep wondering if I missed something or have made some error or assumption that is incorrect based on what he has said.

I almost wish I hadnt pissed Atomizer off so much - then I could ask him some questions and maybe clear up some of these things. On the other hand, I still cant help thinking he doesnt want anyone else to really ‘get’ whats going on and be truly successful. Im going to have to live with the consequences of my actions, but I have to admit it felt good to tell the ass what I thought of him and the way he “helps” people by not helping.

Oh - so far the roots dont seem to care about the changes I made. I am seeing more standing droplets now, so Im going to slowly increase the OFF time in stages.

heathen · May 26, 2020, 9:43am

I usually do two runs: the first one is continuous for 60 or 30 seconds (on high enough pressures) to count an “ideal” flow rate and air consumption. I can’t run it much longer because I need to check air consumption as well, and to do so I need to turn off my compressor and use air from a receiver only (and then calculate the value via pressure drop multiplied with receiver volume). Anyway, it gives some value: I believe a few per cent precision is good enough. Then I turn on the compressor, clear scales, set schedule according to my results from the step 1 (I just put data on that spreadsheet and get MIN and MAX schedules) and start system for a couple of hours. After that I check current water weight, put new data into the spreadsheet and finally get a real flow rate with all overhead. As I know the ideal flow rate I can calculate overhead and get a “clean” or “effective” water amount spent for misting. Pretty easy if you have spreadsheet prepared.

anon32470837 · May 29, 2020, 4:50am

Im still on drugs for kidney stones, so Im a little slow, but I am not following all that. Can you clarify what you mean by ‘ideal flow rate’ and what overhead you are talking about? Is that the run-on water after the cycle ends or?

heathen · May 31, 2020, 9:15am

I’ve started with an idea that there always be some amount of liquid spent for anything but mist: in the beginning and at the end, kind of “positive overhead”. Or it might be less water: even in case of siphon it is impossible to rise pressure, suck water and start misting instantaneously, so it will be “negative overhead”.

“Ideal” flow rate is total amount of liquid spent for misting. You can get it if you run a nozzle for a relatively long time, like I do for 30-60 seconds. All “overhead” on long duration is absolutely insignificant, and you can be sure that all this water been transformed into mist.

But then you need to run your nozzle many times for a small fraction of time. And every time at the beginning and/or at the end of the cycle you get this “overhead”. If you measure an ideal flow rate and water spent for a long time scheduled run I’m pretty sure you’ll see the difference, either positive or negative. So to know exactly how much mist I do I’m trying to calc overhead.

anon32470837 · May 31, 2020, 9:08am

That makes perfect sense now! Great idea. Thanks.

anon32470837 · May 31, 2020, 10:02am

@heathen ans @TexanMD I think I have found somewhat better way for us to quantify or measure “hang time”, or at least a slightly better way to set a standard we can each use on our personal systems. I dont think it will translate from one system to another very well unless they are very similar, but its better than the way I have been doing it - by looking at the mist swirling around in the chamber.

Its pretty simple too. Just put a cat toy lazer shooting down from the top to the bottom of the chamber, and video it from the side with your camera. Its much easier to judge the amount of mist as it thins out over time. Its also easy to see the mist start to leave from the top down - maybe. Ive seen some odd occurrences of mist hanging up top or in the middle for some time, which was unexpected.

Im working on a video which should be up soon…

Note that the position of the camera is such that you cant quite see the very top of the chamber where the laser originates. You’re missing maybe the top 6" of laser light and on the bottom maybe the same.

At about 43 seconds you can begin to see some thinning of the beam. Then at about 1:05 you can see some thinning at the top, and oddly enough at the bottom at the same time. Around 1:30 it really starts to fade and is mostly gone by 1:40 or so.

Based on this, I would call my hang time a total of about 1:40 but I would want to have the nozzles fire before the 1:30 mark. Probably closer to 1:10 to be well before the mst starts to fade. My current timing is about 56 seconds OFF time, so Im still on the wet side a bit. The roots seem to be happy though.

GnomeyByNature · June 4, 2020, 3:56am

Hey @anon32470837, just joined but have read a good amount of your threads and other info, have been parting out a system for maybe two months now and look forward to what you think.

I will probably have it even more difficult than you as it will be an outdoor sort of hoop house, but I’ll also have approx 55 gal using drums.

I’m mostly doing veggies, I know, not as exciting, but I am going for one of those drum tower setups that hold like 40 plants lol

Don’t know if I’ll use all the net pots, but I’m hoping the roots of veggies don’t grow as crazy as your meds!

Also going to be firing nozzles up from the bottom, I will admit I have to catch up on this particular thread, so not sure if you once again change the location, but I’m going to have mine up off the floor some.

Maybe I’ll start another thread so as to not hijack yours.

Thanks for all your contributions man!

I hope to have some innovative things going as well that maybe we can all learn from too!

BudSy · June 4, 2020, 4:06am

Welcome to OG @GnomeyByNature. Definitively start up your own thread. You will have plenty of people watching and @anon32470837 will be able to drown you in info.

anon32470837 · June 6, 2020, 6:59am

Welcome to OG!

Im glad to see another aero guy joining the club

I do not mind questions, comments or getting side tracked, but it would probably be better if you start a new thread. Then you will have everything in one place.

Post as many pics as you can of the setup. Also details about nozzles, pumps, and what ever other parts you plan to use, location details, etc etc.

I like the idea behind the vertical drum grow. If you are doing this out doors cooling the roots may be an issue though. It would help if we had more info on the exact setup - including pics

Excellent! I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with! I think aero growing has plenty of room for improvement and new ideas

When you start that thread, post a note here so I can see it or tag me in the thread so I get a notification.

Im not visiting OG as much as I have been in the past, so I might miss it other wise.