Welcome indrhrvest glad to have you aboard. Looking forward to checking out the design of your sonic nozzle. I apologize in advance for the bombardment of questions.
Oh.. as a CEO I'm use to plenty of questions lol.
I have seen the video before but I am not as familiar with rotary atomizers as I would like to be. How do you plan to prevent over saturation in a 4x8x2 chamber?
The bigger question is what will be the most efficient way to produce plants with the least amount of electricity and water. The majority of our customers will be growing low margin crops unlike marijuana so I have to keep that in mind. I'm not so much interested in developing a "true" Aeroponics system as I am in finding a method that works large scale. My goal is to develop a drain to waste system so obviously that means using as little water as possible. The rotary atomizer we have now is just a starting point. We may find that we have to develop our own systems. We have already done some R&D using low pressure systems and Antelco nozzles (EZ Clone Nozzles). They pretty much saturate everything, but the growth rate was more than satisfactory. Only problem with low pressure is it's not economical to run drain to waste. So the question is.. even if a rotary atomizer does saturate roots, will it use less water, enough so that we can go drain to waste. I won't know that until we do some R&D.
How are you going to cycle mist intervals or do you plan to? If you do cycle will you allow the unit to spool up and down between cycles or will it be continuous duty?
That will come out in R&D. We can develop whatever electronics are needed to run the entire system. First we have to determine electric or pneumatic delivery first.
What are the dimensions of your hdpe chambers? If your chambers are designed for commercial use why not fiberglass or even stainless?
Our first design will be 4X8X2 for deep root mass production, however we will also be building stack-able 4X8X1 as well for smaller plant. HDPE is not only an FDA approved food grade material, it also resists deposit build up. Fiberglass and stainless would muck up pretty quick. Everyone hates scrubbing soap scum off thier bathtub.. imagine a having to do it on a 4X8 bathtub. Our units are being designed to be modular, simply change the lid to a 32 hole, 64 hole, 192 hole or a 4X8 grow mat (leafy greens).
Are your chambers dual walled construction and do you plan to insulate? Also a major concern with commercialization imo would be chilling the reservoirs under greenhouse conditions. What are your thoughts on this?
Our business plan is to develop a turn key application for urban CEA operations, so there is no need to insulate the tanks. Our target markets are cold climate and the middle east, so green houses don't really even fit into our business plan. Our systems would be deployed to places like Alaska, Sweden or Qatar. Our current design doesn't call for a bunch of reservoirs, but one central plant, with a large R/O processing system, single storage (house tank), Dosatron dosers and a manifold style plumbing delivery system.
The HVAC system will be chill water based and we will run a coil system in the house tank. The nutrient manifold will have recirculating pumps. There would be one main tank for each nutrient solution with a manifold system running throughout the complex. Simply roll the modular grow unit up to the manifold, chose the nutrient solution and plug the system in using quick disconnects.
I would love to know your background and experience with aeroponics. Again, welcome to the thread, I hope to hear your thoughts.
I have ZERO experience in Aeroponics aside from some playing around with a low pressure design. My background is in private equity and mechanical project management (plumbing/HVAC). I previously had over a decade of experience in design build and project management of mechanical systems for medical gas, process piping and control systems before getting into private equity promotion. My interest in this industry is that it's something that investors would drool over if packaged right. So I'm going to package it up..
I know how to plumb it, I know how to raise money for it and I know how to promote it..
