I forgot to post this earlier… when I looked at that Atomizer video you linked to earlier, I noticed something that sure looks like a spray nozzle.
If you notice, he is very careful NOT so show any really useful details on his grows, root chambers etc., but this sure looks like a spray nozzle similar to some of the others he has shown.
Sorry - separate posts for good zooming. (crap - original pics too low a rez)
Here is a closer shot.
It looks to me like an internal mix type, but I cant see enough detail to tell if its fan or round, and of course there is no way to tell if its solid or hollow cone or the specs.
based on some of his other comments, Im going to guess its also gravity fed or siphon. He has mentioned using both types.
Anyway, I mainly wanted to point out the location in the chamber.
Edit: It occurs to me this pic is fairly late in the grow cycle - big roots - and he may have been practicing his own advice and moving them around as needed. They might have been lower to start or somewhere else completely.
Good catch!
For me this nozzle looks more like this:
It is a Spraying systems SU16 nozzle, wide angle round pattern.
Or something like this, may be a bigger version.
Damn, I’ve found so many options on ebay to try, but all of them together cost pretty much. I’m on a low budget at the moment but so tempting. 
Especially accounting delivery time if my current options (SUE18A\SUE18B) aren’t going to work.
But I’m not sure cone options is better. I will have a lot of plants (current version is about 40, but it might be 20; still many), so even with a full cone nozzle (or two) I will spray just the closest ones, the first row. The others should get moisture from the floating mist. The only option to mist all plants is to put a very wide nozzle at the lid pointed down. But the angle must be very wide, close to 180 degrees, and I haven’t seen anything like that in catalog. The only option is 360 degree nozzle ( SU340C ), but I know nothing about it except its line in the catalog, and can’t google any video\data. There is even a pretty cheap air cap of this nozzle exists on ebay but no fluid cap offers, so no sense to get that to try.
Could be that one too. Just not enough detail to tell.
I agree with that when it comes to a long chamber like yours - unless it is a very narrow cone. If it was a very narrow cone, you would still have the problem of uneven mist distribution from one end to the other. You would need one at each end.
I like the idea of keeping the fan nozzles you have now, but put one on each end - firing down between two rows of plants.
Turn them so the fan is vertical instead of horizontal, and raise them to the mid point of the chamber. I also like the idea of firing them alternately instead of at the same time.
This will be very similar to another AAA kit sold a few years back. From the reports I remember, it seemed to work well. I cant remember for sure, but there may have been some reports of high root chamber temps - the chamber was all plastic, but we have already talked about that.
Yes, I thought about this kind of setup as well. The only problem with it at the moment is that I want to experiment with different plants density, so current plants bed has design like this:
There is actually just no straight end-to-end “in-between” space at the moment.
If I find specific placement\density then I might give it a try.
I thought about hexagonal pattern as well, it gives more uniform placement, but no straight space as well. Of course I’ll need to find what is better: to put one-two plants more or having better mist (I believe I know the answer, of course 
).
So many option to consider…
By the way, I have detailed reports for this exact nozzle: pressure settings for 40 microns mist (VMD). 50 micron is somewhere not too far from it.
I see now why you really want the nozzle located down low with the fan horizontal. You’re hoping the mist will shoot along the bottom, then turn and go along the upper parts of the chamber.
As you have seen, that isnt working very well. The largest droplets fall out of the stream very quickly, then the medium sized ones hit the far wall (but dont bounce) and only the smaller droplets make the turn up to the top. A large percentage also get stuck on the side walls - which doesnt do you much good either.
You are left with only a small % of the total mist volume reaching the top where the plants will be.
Your growing needs are going to be very different from growing weed. At least I assume that the strawberries will have far smaller, and or shorter roots.
I dont think changing nozzles will help your situation much if any. You are still going to be trying to force the mist to turn a corner it does not want to turn.
I think you would be better off with very short throw very wide angle nozzles - but - place them in the floor shooting up.
Or - turn your growing chamber on end and do a vertical grow with a single nozzle mounted down low. Im sure you have seen those grows that are like a tower with many plants arranged all around it from top to bottom? I dont see why you couldn’t do that with a rectangular chamber just as easily. Or if you can find a clean 55 gallon drum or something similar to use? if you have enough of that plastic film, you could build one of any shape over formed hoops of some sort. Then just stick as many plants as you can fit all around it from top to bottom. They seem to be very successful as a way to grow non-cannabis plants.
Ive said this before, but atomizers rule for DONT SPRAY THE ROOTS DIRECTLY is virtually impossible to follow. Just look at the picture of his grow. The side spray from that nozzle will for sure be hitting some of those roots directly. Plus he has often talked about using hollow cone, wide angle nozzles in an Olympic symbol pattern with the rings over lapping. There is no way in heck of doing that without spraying the roots directly all over the chamber.
I think the closest you could get is with a tower type grow and a very narrow cone nozzle that has a throw distance equal to the height of the tower. That wont work for cannabis, but smaller plants with smaller roots work very well.
Remember earlier in my thread someone - I think it was you - posted a report that said that the outer edges of the spray pattern contained the largest droplets, and the center had the smallest. So a wide cone nozzle will waste much of the spray on the sides of the container - like your fan wastes water on the bottom and sides. Plus, those will be the largest droplets, so the lower plants will not get smaller droplets and the top plants wont get bigger ones… A narrow cone will hopefully shoot all the droplets to the top and they will all fall down and hit some roots more evenly - we hope 
Oh - one other note as far as your plant layout. In my grow it has become obvious that putting the plants too close to the edge causes the roots up against the chamber wall to die back once the roots get bigger. This may not be as big a problem with strawberries if they have much smaller root balls, but I would still be cautious about crowding the walls.
EDit - it just occured to ne that the tower grow option wont work well with your lights. You would need lights all the way around, which could get $$. Plus then access would be tricky. So scratch that idea 
Hmmmmm - what about something wild - a grow “wall”. Still use your fan nozzles on the bottom of a root chamber shaped like a paper back book standing on end. Imagine your chamber stood on end, but wider and not as deep. Put the plants all on one wall on one side with the light facing that wall. The nozzle shoots up from the bottom and is still toward the back side some.
Ok, ok, that is pretty wild and I can already think of several issues
A lot of that advice above isnt going to do you much good I know, but here is some that I think will help. You are not going to like it though because you are a lot like me and want to design something that is perfect from the beginning - or at least as close to perfect as you can afford.
Unfortunately, you still have at least a dozen or more unknowns - mostly about nozzles, but also about how strawberries will react to this environments.
Trying to design a perfect system with that many unknowns is pretty much impossible unless you are very very lucky and guess right every time.
I would strongly suggest you just start growing and see what happens. You are already almost all the way ready to start. Once you do start, you are going to find out things you had no idea you even needed to know and didnt even know to ask the question.
Im like you. I want to know ALL the details, specs, processes, theory and best practices, etc etc etc before I ever start. I want it all planned out to the last detail before I start assembly of the first piece of what ever. Before I even buy the first piece.
The main problem is Atomizer and his buddies refuse to share the one vital, absolutely critical piece of information that every thing else is built on - which nozzles work.
He is leaving you and me and everyone else in the same place I was when I started. You have to pick some nozzles and just see how they work - or dont work - then make your best guess how to improve things.
Yes, this is exactly the reason I dismissed the idea of the tower grow at the very beginning: problems with lights and maintainability.
I want to try to set pressure so the stream would end before the wall and drops don’t hit the opposite wall at the full speed (or at all - turbulence starts at around 35-50 cm from the nozzle). Not sure it is going to work, but I need to try.
An another idea is to resign of the closest to the walls plants and place two nozzles at the middle with vertical fan in parallel to the longer walls.
I would give a try to the 360 degree nozzle placed at the very top as well. But can’t find any info as well as a fluid cap (there is an air cap offer on eBay exists but not the fluid cap, so can’t make full SU340C nozzle).
Thanks for this advice, I’m totally agree with you. Didn’t start it yet because at the moment I’m sure plants are going to die at least from the one side because there is just no wet mist there available. And because I can’t stand the compressor working so often (too big air consumption). I will try these new nozzles and if they don’t work in a way I want now I will just put them up and start test growing with something like lettuce just to be just it works at all. Strawberry rootstocks are too expensive to just put them into the system and see what is going to happen without any prior test - like $1.5 per plant and I need 40-60
I had another idea, but not sure if it will make much difference. Maybe try to make the vertical turn at the far end easier without generating so much turbulence.
Try adding something to soften or round off the lower corner at the far end. Even just a piece of cardboard temporarily taped in place should tell you if its making any difference.
Like this.
EDit: I would actually suggest an even larger curve - make the turn as soft as possible.
Edit 2: On second thought, it would be even better if you curved the top corner as well. That should help some of the larger droplets to turn both corners with less turbulence, and come back along the upper area more effectively. If you have nozzles on both ends, you will need to curve the opposite end the same way.
Such changes would require significant chamber redesign and rebuild 
But I still have enought film I made the chamber from so I can make an another chamber. With less number of issues this time 
I’m waiting for the new nozzles, they should arrive before weekend. At least they have already imported. After tests going to evaluate future possibilities. Probably it would be better to just install the second nozzle on the opposite side and move nozzles up.
And have no idea what to do with dripping though. With pressurized fluid supply the only option is to have a special Drip Free nozzle kits, but they are pretty pricey, even used ones.
Like I said - you could do a quick and dirty test just by taping some cardboard in place in the corners. That would at least tell you if its worth pursuing or a silly idea
Yeah, I had issues with ADV’s (Anti Drip Valves) when I was doing HPA. They were just not consistent as far as what pressure they opened or closed at. I bought 1/2 a dozen or more nozzles that were supposed to open at 60 PSI and close at 20 PSI, but the pressure ranges were all over the place. Most of them actually opened between 20 and 30 PSI with a couple at close to 40, and closed anywhere from 5 to 25 PSI. That really made it impossible to have the same flow rates from multiple nozzles in the chamber at the same time and no uniformity if one clogged up and you had to change it. Of course, these were cheaper nozzles, so Im sure that had a lot to do with it, but I even ordered springs only from a name brand place and still had similar huge variations.
Thats not even going into clogging. The ADV’s were magnets for clogs - the springs. Thats the main reason I ended up with 50 micron filters on the nute side. That also means you pretty much cant use organic stuff in your nutes. Tons more clogging.
By the way, Atomizer has answered me under his video and left a comment to mine.
I’ve put a paper towel into the lid hole as I did before but I’ve left the system working for a few hours with 1.4 seconds on and 35 seconds off (later about schedule). After 3 hours (and actually slightly less) the towel became damp: not too wet but dump. At the same time I’ve measured water consumption for this 3 hours.
So, I’ve measured the nozzle continuous flow rates first. It appears that with the internal mix nozzle at 1.57 bar water pressure and 1.2 air pressure the system spits ~100 l/min of air and 5.7 l/h of water.
I need from 2.219 to 6.658 ml of water for every session (for ~420L), so it gives from 1.4 to 4.2 seconds of active misting per session, and I’ve set the minimum one to check what is going to happened. The actual water consumption appears to be 783 ml for ~3 hours, so it gives 2.62 ml per session (1.4 sec ON + 35 OFF) or 6.7 l/h. It is only about 18% more than without dripping; still annoying but a lot less than I thought. The whole system with such flow rate will need around 6.3 L per 24 hours that look a lot better than 17 liters I’ve calculated before.
But this calculations are for internal mix air cap. Going to check with external mix as well. And looking forward for the Spraying systems ones: hope to reduce both air and water consumption.
At the same time thinking how to connect the water part solenoid directly to the nozzle. I would either to cut one side of the blue one and insert a 1/4" BSP male connector or use the same solenoid as on the air side. Two problems: each one eats 4A (but I can lower voltage) and they are from brass.
Interesting. You managed to get some new information from him about mist and how to judge it. Good info!
More later…
I need to re-read his comments, but here are some quick thoughts.
Are you going to try his suggested ratio for water pressure to air pressure - 2/3? That sounds like it might be worth trying. I find it interesting he didnt mention siphon options - which is what he always talks about with his videos.
I see. That timing would be roughly equal to the 1.4 x 70 he suggested as a starting point - if you were using two nozzles instead of one. You may find that two nozzles are more efficient as far as filling the chamber and wetting the upper sections. Three hours seems like a bit long to dampen the paper, but the only way to tell for sure is to have plants in there.
That may improve with the other nozzles and/or having two of them in there may also let you lower the flow rate. For a comparison - Im now using aprox 5.5 l/day of liquid total from the three nozzles Im using. My roots are staying on the smooth side in most places, but that may be due more to the poor nozzle position than flow rates. My nozzles are definitely not in the best positions for this stage of growth in my chamber.
Speaking of positions - you may want to allow for at least some change of position or maybe just the angle of the nozzles. Ive found that you need a lot more flow rate or even direct misting of the roots during the initial transition period while they are getting used to the mist environment.
Yeah, I suspect that each nozzles will be different to one degree or another. If you try his suggested water to air pressure ratio, that will change things as well. Probably smaller droplets and lower flow rates.
I dont know how much improvement you will see. You are already pretty close as it is and that tubing doesnt stretch much at those low pressures. Plus, if you lower the water pressure, that will reduce any pressure build up even more. Id just make the tubing you have as short as possible. Oh - be sure to use any locking clips. The clips help keep the tubing from sliding back and forth in the fittings. All the ones available where I am are that way. There is a small amount of in/out slop that allows the tubing to slide in/out of the fitting and that will allow some pressure build up and cause run-on dripping. The locking clips stop that.
Yes, going to do it today, I’ll report back with results.
Yep, but your chamber has less volume, is it? I’ve calculated ideal water consumption for my 420 L chamber: from 5.3 liters per 24 hours at early stages and to almost 16 liters at the latter stages (bigger plants consume more water).
I agree, I need to think about it. It is not easy to do so as I can only put nozzles from the outside: the chamber itself is soft. I thought just to cut another holes and protect somehow the old one(s).
But from the other side: I will not be able to mist directly all the plants or I need many more nozzles and with different spray pattern.
Yeah, I noticed that too. May be this is because I told I already have pressurized option.
I was thinking the same way but he said that it is how it should be. By the way, I like the idea “mist is a growing medium like soil”. Has sense. But not sure we are talking [with Atomizer] about the same “damp” state: mine aren’t wet, just slightly damp. And I found confirmation of his words:
Its normal for the top of the chamber to be barely damp, if you are using netpots you should see what looks like very fine condensation on the outside of the netpot but it wont be much. If you darken the room and shine a bright light into a 1" gap between the lid and the chamber you should see a lot of mist at the top that is invisible to the naked eye.
My lid is definitely has this very fine condensation. May my mist isn’t as much dry as I thought. 
If this will reduce water overhead even for 0.5-1 ml per session (and I think it might - I see pretty much water even with the smallest orifice) then it reduce daily consumption for 1.2 - 2.3 liter at the earlier stages and much more during the mature ones. But it isn’t the main concern at the moment, of course.
Not sure I know what is it Could you show yours?
Ah, good point. I dont normally think in metric units Mine is about 215 liters.
I bet there is a good bit of side spray, so if you move them up to just under the net pots, I bet they would get really wet. You might have to play with that some.
Could be. I may be too quick to think badly of him 
I agree. Your plants will tell you for sure.
Here you go. Your fitting may be different, but if there is any in/out movement, it would be worth it to try to stop that.
I just went back and looked at the close up picture of your fittings. You have what looks like the same clips on your solenoid. The black fittings also look like there is a place for a locking clip - maybe. Its hard to tell.
