HHP's 10K HPA Build Thread!

[hardhat]

Heres the deal:

I currently have 10 XXXL reflectors with 1000w digital ballasts and sunmaster bulbs. I am nearing the end of my first grow and currently using soil (25% perlite, 25% cocoa, 50% ocean forrest). As soon as I harvest I'll be putting in my notice at this house and moving gardens, from a garage to a basement. As it may seem obvious, this is a was purchased to be a production system, and it will continue to be, but I've had it with soil.

I am very excited to have learned about true HPA and have spent the last few days reading up on it, so I think I understand the basics. The biggest advantage I noticed immediately is the scalability, with one reservoir/pump/accumulator setup I can feed my entire crop.

I intend to fabricate my root boxes myself, preliminary plans involve a metal frame with panda wrapped around it, black side in and a drain hole on the bottom. For the top, my thought was a 1/4" thick sheet of opaque plastic with 3" neoprenes, I intend to have nine plants per light, likely with a scrog.

What size should my root boxes be, and where should the sprayers be? My current thought is to do a 5x5x2 (for extra room around root balls) box with four side sprayers positioned to create a swirling effect as well as some sprayers on top?

Thats all for now

 

[MrMeanGreen]

You are heading into a world where rewards can be great but also your toilet can suck your cash in and send your stress levels through the roof. Alot of water, electricity and hazards. My advice is plan it well, don't scrimp on your fixtures and fittings. If you don't, your looking at floods, unhealthy plants and general chaos. Don't bite off more than you can chew, maybe set up a small HPA system and get to know it before you expand.

Example.....

sprayers. You can by cheap sprayers for pennies but they are shit and clog easily.

Pumps. Agian you can buy cheap but they become very noisy after a few weeks.

Piping. Cheap pipes and joints leak easily, use microbore that they use for central heating.

The list goes on.

Think about how you are going to clean your equipment, have spares ready. Good luck.

 

[hardhat]

You are heading into a world where rewards can be great but also your toilet can suck your cash in and send your stress levels through the roof. Alot of water, electricity and hazards. My advice is plan it well, don't scrimp on your fixtures and fittings. If you don't, your looking at floods, unhealthy plants and general chaos. Don't bite off more than you can chew, maybe set up a small HPA system and get to know it before you expand.

Example.....

sprayers. You can by cheap sprayers for pennies but they are shit and clog easily.

Pumps. Agian you can buy cheap but they become very noisy after a few weeks.

Piping. Cheap pipes and joints leak easily, use microbore that they use for central heating.

The list goes on.

Think about how you are going to clean your equipment, have spares ready. Good luck.

I appreciate the warning and concern, but I have a good idea of what I'm getting myself into, financially I can afford to build the system and then lose a crop or two and still be OK. With that being said, I am looking for ANY and ALL advice, that anyone has to give, especially if it was gained from experience or a lesson learned. I can always go back to soil, but I have no intention to do that.

My general plan of attack for accomplishing this task is generally in this order:
Design/build prototype root box
Design/build res/Accumulator/timer/solenoid
Design/build rest of root boxes

I hope to have most of the major assembly and construction done by the beginning of July.

Most importantly right now, I want to work out the root box size so that I can start drawing it up and produce a prototype.

 

[hardhat]

This is a sketch of my tentative top down plant/sprayer plan.

There will be nozzles on top spraying down in between all the plants, nozzles on the sides part way down spraying at the plants where the dots are, and the circles are the 3" netpots.


In this configuration the idea is to put them into flower as quickly as possible ... think its possible to limit each to under 12" in any direction? A super-low scrog?

Edit:

These are the nozzles I intend to use:
http://catalog.seelyeinc-orl.com/item/spraying-fogging-nozzles-2/non-drop-conical-spray-nozzles-1-8-npt/22211078011?&bc=100|1043|1073|1153|1162
Combined with these:
http://catalog.seelyeinc-orl.com/item/pipe-fittings-2/female-pipe-couplings/12020302023?
To connect to these:
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-3004-swivel-branch-tee-polypro-14-x-18-nptf.aspx

I put in a request for a quote for 200 of each from seelyeinc, i'm curious what that brings the price down to.

Assuming I pay retail I'm looking at: $1.21 + $.45 + $1.89 = $3.55 ... per sprayer, not bad.

With 21 sprayers per box i'm looking at $74.55, again, not bad at all.

Edit #2:

No Discount!
They are out of Stock!
2 Week Lead time!
Salt on the wound, $5 HANDLING FEE!!!

 

[Aeropuff]

hey hardhat. My suggestion is first design/complete your rez/pump/accum tank/solenoid/timer set-up and then just get a few nozzles and make a prototype box and see how it goes. After you do some tests you might change your mind with the number of sprayers you will be needing, the tubing diameter etc...just my 2c

Good luck

 

[Atomizer]

If you gear the delivery system to run the 210 original nozzles that should give you enough leeway. As rough guide, the accumulator, pump (12v), 2 cycle timers (12v) (seperate day/night) pressure regulator and 10 solenoids (12v) could be somewhere around the $700 mark.

 

[indrhrvest]

There will be nozzles on top spraying down in between all the plants, nozzles on the sides part way down spraying at the plants where the dots are, and the circles are the 3" netpots.

Depending on how deep your boxes are, we had better luck pointing the nozzles up from the bottom.

You can get basically the same nozzles here:

http://www.reptilebasics.com/misting-nozzles

And since you are only using 21 total, you could use 1/2 X 1/8 PVC TEEs and 1/2 pipe:

http://www.qcsupply.com/pvc-reducing-female-tee-slip-x-slip-x-fip.html

We ran 22 nozzles on a single Shurflo 100 PSI pump with a little 24 oz accumulator with no issues. If you want to low budget it, just get some Schd 80 grey PVC pipe and a drill and tap for 1/8 NPT thread. The schd 80 pipe wall thickness is good enough to just thread the nozzles right into the pipe after tapping. Just some options.

 

[Atomizer]

He`ll be running a lot more than 22 nozzles with 10kw of light

My general plan of attack for accomplishing this task is generally in this order:
Design/build prototype root box
Design/build res/Accumulator/timer/solenoid
Design/build rest of root boxes

 

[hardhat]

Is there any specific advantage to all this twelve volt stuff? I'm not doing this outside, and my whole setup runs on 240 ... it seems to me it would make sense to just run it all off the same circuit as my lights.

 

[hardhat]

This is the timer I'm going to use:
http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=16&products_id=290

Will I need to run each box (21 sprayers) separately?

If I have to run each box separately, thats 10x $40 timer and 10 x $20 solenoid.

The best part about all of the numbers on this page is that they are worth it

 

[Atomizer]

If the power ever goes out you`ll be glad you chose 12vdc even if it runs on a 240v transformer most of the time. Besides that, you dont want 240v ac near hp mist unless the fittings have good ingress protection ratings (IP66-68 )
One timer can run as many chambers as you like, using two gives you the option of seperate day/night timing and automatically provides a backup you can use in the event that one fails. Your only looking at $47 each.

 

[hardhat]

My concern is 210 misters misting at once will be too much load for the system to keep up?

Good point about the 12v, if the power goes out the misters still need to mist...

 

[Atomizer]

An accumulator isnt limited by pressure and flowrate like a pump, it will happily deliver as much as the pipework will allow..at least until the tank is empty
If you use 1/2" schedule 40 pipe to supply the solenoids from the accumulator, you`ll have twice the capacity needed for 210 nozzles. Use smaller lines between the solenoids and nozzles (which should be equipped with anti drain valves) to reduce mist run on.

A 26gal accumulator charged from 80 to 140psi could run 210 (3.3LPH @ 80psi) nozzles on a 1 sec/90 sec cycle (or 2sec/180sec etc) for 5 hours, assuming no losses or mist run on. At 80psi, the pump (just one) would kick in for <11 minutes to recharge the tank to 140psi and you`re all set for another 5 hours.

Using a pressure reducer/regulator is a good plan to ensure the nozzles get a constant 80psi. Without one, they`ll see a range of pressure from 140psi to 80psi as the tank pressure drops, which will mess with the nozzles flowrate (higher pressure, higher flow) and cause the accumulator to empty faster than expected.

 

[indrhrvest]

My concern is 210 misters misting at once will be too much load for the system to keep up?

Good point about the 12v, if the power goes out the misters still need to mist...

Create zones and use seperate timming devices for each zone. Once setup, simply stagger the on times.

There are two ways to accomplish this. As Atomizer has stated, you can use a single large accumulator to run a larger number of nozzles. This is going to be the simpliest and cheapest route overall. There are some drawbacks however if you are operating a very large system.

In our design, instead of using a single large accumulator and single pump, we use a number of pumps and smaller accumulators. In each of our trays, we use independent systems. So in our design, every 22 nozzles uses an independent pump and 24 oz accumulator. We put an individual timer for every two pumps.

This way, if a pump fails in a single 4X8 tray, you still have a second pump that will at least keep some mist going so the plants don't suffer. It also isolates any pump failure. When using a single pump and large accumulator, should the pump fail, once the accumulator pressure drops, it affects a larger number of nozzles.

There is obviously pro's and con's to both methods. So it's really a matter of budget, size of operation and risk assesments of crop loss. One thing we hope to work on is developing a monitoring system that useses low pressure switches that would be installed between the pumps and solenoids. Should a pump fail, it would trigger the low pressure switch which would then raise an alarm that could either be audible and/or connected to a device that could send a text message.

 

[Atomizer]

The pump is less likely to fail if it runs for 11 minutes every 5 hours but its easy and cheap to work around.
Add a second pump, pressure switch and a latching relay. Connect the backup pump in parallel with the main system pressure switch with the latching relay contacts in series with the positive line. In the unlikely event of a pump failure, the additional pressure switch (set to trigger at slightly less than the normal system pump cut-in pressure, eg 70psi) activates the coil to the latching relay which connects power to the backup pump via the system pressure switch ( 80psi cut-in / 140psi cut-out).
Fully automatic pump backup for under $200, including the pump

 

[indrhrvest]

The pump is less likely to fail if it runs for 11 minutes every 5 hours but its easy and cheap to work around.

In 20 years of design build in the mechanical industry I've never seen this to be true. Diaphram pumps typically fail due to unfiltered contaniments and it's typicaly the pressure switch that fails when it gets foreign debris. Simply use a filter and a diaphram pump will provide years of trouble free service.

Our setup, the pump runs about 4-5 seconds every 8 minutes. That's 34 seconds every hour.. or less than 3 minutes every 5 hours. Just sayin..

 

[Atomizer]

It best to use good quality external pressure switches as the ones on the pumps are less than great quality and tend to drift. A pump thats switched on/off 180 times a day is likely to break faster than something you switch on/off 5 times a day. Its also much cheaper to replace 1 pump than 20, stands to reason if one fails the rest wont be too far behind as they`ll have done exactly the same mileage.

 

[hardhat]

Wow, a lot of activity since I've been here last.

We ran 22 nozzles on a single Shurflo 100 PSI pump with a little 24 oz accumulator with no issues. If you want to low budget it, just get some Schd 80 grey PVC pipe and a drill and tap for 1/8 NPT thread. The schd 80 pipe wall thickness is good enough to just thread the nozzles right into the pipe after tapping. Just some options.

Its my understanding that PVC doesn't perform very well in these high pressure environments?

Additionally I'm pretty sold on the JG type fittings and the corresponding hose, which is available in 1/2 or larger!

An accumulator isnt limited by pressure and flowrate like a pump, it will happily deliver as much as the pipework will allow..at least until the tank is empty If you use 1/2" schedule 40 pipe to supply the solenoids from the accumulator, you`ll have twice the capacity needed for 210 nozzles. Use smaller lines between the solenoids and nozzles (which should be equipped with anti drain valves) to reduce mist run on.


A 26gal accumulator charged from 80 to 140psi could run 210 (3.3LPH @ 80psi) nozzles on a 1 sec/90 sec cycle (or 2sec/180sec etc) for 5 hours, assuming no losses or mist run on. At 80psi, the pump (just one) would kick in for <11 minutes to recharge the tank to 140psi and you`re all set for another 5 hours.


Using a pressure reducer/regulator is a good plan to ensure the nozzles get a constant 80psi. Without one, they`ll see a range of pressure from 140psi to 80psi as the tank pressure drops, which will mess with the nozzles flowrate (higher pressure, higher flow) and cause the accumulator to empty faster than expected.

I was planning on using one of the smaller 10.3g accumulators: http://www.pexsupply.com/Amtrol-143N164-THERM-X-TROL-ST-25V-Expansion-Tank-10-3-Gallon-Volume

Additionally, I like the dual pump backup, so I'll likely add that, especially with this smaller accumulator. A $200 safety measure seems very worth it.

The timer isn't rated for only 12v, so I emailed the company and asked if they could sell me a 12vdc version, as their website says they do custom work for a "reasonable" price.

I'll know more after this weekend about how much $$ I am going to have to invest in my other business, and I should be able to start ordering the nutrient delivery setup. Lets hope I sell a lot of tourist crap this weekend!

 

[Atomizer]

The 10.3gal will give you about 2 hours with 210 nozzles. You can always fit additional accumulators to the system if you decide you need some extra capacity.
The pump will take around 3 minutes 40 seconds to charge the tank (80psi-140psi).

 

[indrhrvest]

It best to use good quality external pressure switches as the ones on the pumps are less than great quality and tend to drift.

Or just use a good industrial spec'd pump to begin with, one that has a great track record in industrial applications. I've worked with a lot of pumps for many different applications, this isn't my first rodeo. We are not using off the shelf pumps, we have our own spec.

Its my understanding that PVC doesn't perform very well in these high pressure environments?

Our prototype used 1/2 PVC without any issues. The only real drawback is the additional volume. Once the solenoid closes you have the additional volume of the 1/2 PVC that will be released from the nozzle until it looses pressure. You'd simply use more water is all.

Here's what we came up with after quite a bit of R&D. We switched to 3/8 stainless tube with 1/8 npt bungs. It obviously costs a little more, but you'll never have any problems with it. The rack mount allows you to use differnt manifold setups.