+rep Problem with Aeroponic basic

squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
hey all, im starting aeroponic, and my first basic thing was to just check if I could get the sprayers to spray. Well, I failed.

I originally posted this at another forum but wasn't able to get help, other than my sprayers were clogged (they weren't). So, I post it here for input. Like I mentioned, I'm a noob to aeroponics.

I set up my system, and my misters/sprayers just kinda fizzle or act like drippers mostly.

Heres the original posting

Hello everyone and stinkbuddies

I am a first time aerogrower, attempting to make a cloner type unit. My problem is with the misters, they don't seem to be working for me, instead of 'misting' it seems a trickle of water comes out or breif quirts.

I can't get my misters to mist! I was making some trial setup, to just test the misters, and noticed he problems. So, I think I narrowed it down to a few possibilities on what is going wrong.
1) too much pressure
2) too little pressure
3) bad seal somewhere

So, I was wondering, my pump is about 400/gph. I am using these sprayers, 360 Degree Spray Jet - EZ Clone replacement-Pack of 10!


I already had them for several months ago before I heard of Stinkbudds.

But, as I mentioned, basically water trickles out of them, and they surely dont spray or mist. I am not sure about the pressure thing, since I made a test setup, with only room for 1,2,3,4,5 sprayers, and the same results happened. Any ideas of why my sprayers wont spray?

Also, I used a 11/64 drill, but I also have a 10-24 #25 drill tap that makes the exact threading for these misters. So, I think the seal is pretty good.


Help! thanks :)



EDIT: I also read in Stinkbud cloner guide, that he uses 10 misters per 400 gph pump in PVC pipe, with no problems.



more pictures of my problem






and here, I took off 1 misters/sprayer at the end, and ran the system with the one off.







Any idea whats going on? I checked the sprayers, and they are new and dont seem clogged. Even if 1 or 2 were clogged, I dont' think all 10 could be clogged. Im running a 500 gph pump. There doesn't appear to be water leak, other than from the misters.

thanks!
 
morrisgreenberg

morrisgreenberg

Well-Known Member
you need to operate at atleast 25gph of pump per spray head min, other than that i dont know, i personally never used the type you have picture, i used ez clones, 330degree micros and those cheap rain drips and never had an issue. try using 1/2inch hose, this could be it, but a 500gph with only a handful of spray heads shouldnt have this problem, like i said i can gaurentee you better results with a smaller diameter hose, looks like you have a 3/4 inch. with smaller hoses your going to have more of a bottleneck effect and this just may be the ticket
 
whitefrost

whitefrost

Active Member
i think morris is on the right trail going with a smaller diameter hose will increase the pressure and possibly improve the flow out of the heads good luck let us know how it works out
 
skinnyone

skinnyone

Well-Known Member
actually our hose diameter is fine if you have a big enough pump. larger diameter creates more pressure with the bottleneck. I think you need a bigger pump for the bigger diameter hose to get your pressure right. you might try a smaller diameter as Morris suggested and its probably the cheapest way to go instead of buying a new pump
 
R

resinraider

Well-Known Member
Ur pumps fine and so is ur pipe. No mater the diameter of the pipe, the pump will distribute the same pressure once the water is stored in it. Looking at ur pics, I see an adpter piece at the end of the pipe. Y is it not closed off?
 
Drr

Drr

Well-Known Member
The one that's missing and gushing out water tells us you have a decent amount of pressure..
 
ImTheFireMan

ImTheFireMan

Well-Known Member
i am running the same size hose with a 250gph pump and 15 misters. except i didnt drill holes in the hose. they have this little hole poker tool that makes a hole smaller than the diametr of the mister. so its kind of a bitch to squeeze them in but once they are in there its good, i'm wondering if maybe the hole is too big for the mister? \

also, i got a 3/4 inch T and let it run in a circle rather than just a straight line like you have...i dont know if that makes a difference either.
 
fatman7574

fatman7574

New Member
Wow so many bad answers. High flow pumps are nearly always low pressure. Look at the headthe pump is capable of. If it is only capable of pumping against a few feet of head presuure there is your answer. With a pressure biased pump ypou do not need flow beyond the rated flow of the nozzles. for an example if you use an Iwaki MD-30RZT it is capable of over 20 psi at 18 ffot of head. A high flow pump will not even pump against 18 foot of head prsessure. The simpliest solutio would be to buy a pressure i n biased I waki Pump. Here is one on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/Iwaki-Magnet-Pump-Model-MD-30RZT-115NL-Unused_W0QQitemZ370331286166QQcmdZViewItemQQptZBI_Pumps?hash=item563976fa96 It will easily provide water at high pressure to 26 spray heads. The sprayers will then spray better than what even one spray head will on a flow biased pump. Using spray heads on the flow biased pumps is absurd as the performance at best is still dismal.
 
squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
ok, heres some more info on the pump

its 528 GPH, 7.2foot head

is this not enough even to run a few mister/sprayers?
 
fatman7574

fatman7574

New Member
To be honest with you no the pump is not adequate, however most growers are using inadequate pumps with their spray heads. The small sprayers you have are made for water pressures of 15 to 30 psi. The next step up is made for pressures of 35 to 80 psi. Your pump likely puts out maybe 5 to 7 psi as is standard with high volume fountain and aquarium pumps. While some can get half-assed performance using flow biased pumps using the low pressure sprayers I assure you they are not getting a good spray such as the sprayers were designed to provide. The low pressure sprayers should be putting out a spray of droplets of water, not a trickling stream or a set of streams of any kind.

Picture putting your thumb over the end of a garden hose. The spray that would come out of the hose is the type of spray that should becoming out of the spray nozzle, however the sprayers output would be smaller of course. The idea though is it should come out as what appears to be a high pressure spray. The difference is that the shape of the spray will be as design as either 270 or 360 degrees. It should however be a forceful spray.

The misters output from the high pressure nozzles will look like the spray from an aerosol can such as a spray paint can.

The Iwaki MD30-RLZT pump will provide the pressure needed for the low pressure sprayers as it is a 22 psi pump, however to get the manufactured designed spray it will only handle up to about 25 spray heads. The next pump up is the MD70-70RZT and it will put out 40 to 45 psi. It will supply continuously about 45 low pressure high volume sprayers or about 100 high pressure low volume misters. It will work very well with the misters but is an energy hog so people using the high pressure nozzles usually use accumulator tanks and diaphragm pumps instead. The Iwakis are aquarium pumps and are designed to run continuously or to be cycled on and off infrequently. With high pressure spraying the spray is only 1 or 2 seconds per minute or two and is controoled by a timer and solenoid valve.

Most growers with small tube aeros, NTF and such use cheap high volume pumps that provide low pressures so they seldom ever get good spraying, they get enough to work fair, and apparently they consider that enough. Research would show that plant roots in an aero system prefer water droplets of a certain size (60 to 80 microns for the majority of the droplets) but those droplet sizes are obviously not provided by low pressure sprayers even powered with pumps of higher pressure.

It is just another example of the suppliers of equipment for MJ growers putting out cheap substandard products that become the normal, thereby making the normal substandard equipment.
 
squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
fatman7574 said:
To be honest with you no the pump is not adequate, however most growers are using inadequate pumps with their spray heads. The small sprayers you have are made for water pressures of 15 to 30 psi. The next step up is made for pressures of 35 to 80 psi. Your pump likely puts out maybe 5 to 7 psi as is standard with high volume fountain and aquarium pumps. While some can get half-assed performance using flow biased pumps using the low pressure sprayers I assure you they are not getting a good spray such as the sprayers were designed to provide. The low pressure sprayers should be putting out a spray of droplets of water, not a trickling stream or a set of streams of any kind.

Picture putting your thumb over the end of a garden hose. The spray that would come out of the hose is the type of spray that should becoming out of the spray nozzle, however the sprayers output would be smaller of course. The idea though is it should come out as what appears to be a high pressure spray. The difference is that the shape of the spray will be as design as either 270 or 360 degrees. It should however be a forceful spray.

The misters output from the high pressure nozzles will look like the spray from an aerosol can such as a spray paint can.

The Iwaki MD30-RLZT pump will provide the pressure needed for the low pressure sprayers as it is a 22 psi pump, however to get the manufactured designed spray it will only handle up to about 25 spray heads. The next pump up is the MD70-70RZT and it will put out 40 to 45 psi. It will supply continuously about 45 low pressure high volume sprayers or about 100 high pressure low volume misters. It will work very well with the misters but is an energy hog so people using the high pressure nozzles usually use accumulator tanks and diaphragm pumps instead. The Iwakis are aquarium pumps and are designed to run continuously or to be cycled on and off infrequently. With high pressure spraying the spray is only 1 or 2 seconds per minute or two and is controoled by a timer and solenoid valve.

Most growers with small tube aeros, NTF and such use cheap high volume pumps that provide low pressures so they seldom ever get good spraying, they get enough to work fair, and apparently they consider that enough. Research would show that plant roots in an aero system prefer water droplets of a certain size (60 to 80 microns for the majority of the droplets) but those droplet sizes are obviously not provided by low pressure sprayers even powered with pumps of higher pressure.

It is just another example of the suppliers of equipment for MJ growers putting out cheap substandard products that become the normal, thereby making the normal substandard equipment.
Click to expand...
I hear what you are saying Fatman.
I plan on doing FAG (Fake Aero Growing), using misters and "aeroponics" roughly as a a drip feed equivalent. I know the small droplet size of TAG is far superior to FAG, however I am not choosing TAG since my system is basically going to be a DWC main feed system, with supplemental (FAG) to assist in upper root growth only.

Normally people use a drip system for top roots, I want to use FAG for better coverage. My main system will be DWC tho so im not worried if its FAG or TAG though.

TAG is nice, and that pump is nice fatman linked, I may get it.
 
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