My 8’x13’ sealed and insulated room is nearly complete. All self performance. Once the DW is complete, I’ll be lining the entire room in panda. Going to run double entry. First entrance will house all controllers above cabinet wall mounted, under cabinet rez, twin iCloud 6” fans and mountain air filters pulling negative air in with backdraft damper and second with MA filter discharging exterior with option to recirculate via damper. Both running off the same controller for room balancing. Interior scrubbing will be handled by an 8” MA.
OP parts continue to roll in. Currently the room is holding @ 66*. I’m going to start with 27 gal totes wrapped in foil insulation on a wooden stand. They will be elevated just enough to get positive drainage to DTW basin to be checked prior to discharge. Pump to discharge via 12v pump and 3/8” line.
Going to start /try Cloning with HPA opposed to LPA and led lighting.
1 tote will house 12 plants, to start. Really haven’t found much documentation regarding HPA cloning. The thought is the plants could go from cradle to grave in same chamber with alternating rez’s. One for clone and early flower and second for flower to finish. Setting the stage for a perpetual setup.
Your thoughts on the HPA cloning...
SOG & SCROG simultaneously as test
Tote1: 1- plant, 2 nozzles, 1 solenoid (mom to be)
Tote2: 2- plants, 4 nozzles, 1solenoid (SCROG moms to be possibly)
Tote3: 4-plants, 6 nozzles, 1 solenoid (SOG test)
Based on flow calculations going to have to get a sub second timer.
Any recommendations w/o having to build one?
Going to start with 1- 2000w led centered and T5 HO with red enhancement angled around the sides. We’ll see...
Going to run all MegaCrop start to finish DTW.
The 8855 pump and 20gal accumulator will be the heart and sole of the OP running 100 - 115psi with .8 gph nozzles. Later flow tests will determine the starting point. In that size chamber I am thinking 3-4 heads max if I can’t get to @ .5-.7 sec timing. Also based on hang time of mist.
At .8gph each head would deliver around .0002 gallon per second.
4 heads at .0008/ sec
At 1440 minutes/day at 3 minute intervals at 480 cycles/ day I would only be at somewhere around .38 gal/ day which isn’t nearly enough unless I am missing something.
Again, what would be your recommendation regarding a timer w/o having to build one?
Most parts running 120v but could adapt to 12v easily.
I have only a little experience with HPA cloning, but it works fine as long as you have good timing and keep the stems wet, but I had better luck with LPA cloning.
Make sure you have a good, easy way to check the roots regularly. You will be adjusting timing a lot in the early stages of growth. However, be sure your access point is air tight and light tight. HPA roots dont like either one.
Which nozzles are you using? Do they have ADV's (Anti-drip valves)? You really need ADV's on each nozzle at a minimum, and/or one solenoid for each nozzle - placed as close to the nozzle as possible - preferably both. If not, then your mist quality will suffer - a lot. I tried it your way and it didnt work well at all.
Say you have a 1 second ON timing. If you have several nozzles sharing a single solenoid - especially if they dont have ADV's - then the nozzles will start flowing while the pressure is still building in the tubing and it will continue flowing long after the solenoid closes. When I had lots of tubing between the solenoids and nozzles, and no adv's, I might have the timer set to 1 sec ON time, but testing shows an actual flow time of up to 1.5 seconds. The more tubing you have the longer the run-on flow time.
This results in your mist cycle having too large a droplet size at the beginning and end of each cycle and will raise your flow rate - potentially a lot when compared to a nice crisp, clean on/off cycle. Mostly though it just wastes nutes and makes for plain, non-fuzzy roots. You could easily see 50% to 100% higher real flow rates than the math would suggest. Those over size drops wont hang and will result - at best - in regular hydro roots rather than fuzzy roots. You will have a very hard time "dialing in" the timing because the roots can never see a uniform droplet size and the majority of droplets will be far outside the best size range - 20-80 microns.
You should do some flow testing to see what your actual flow rates are. You may be very surprised at what you see. I also recommend you use a camera to take video of the mist cycles. Then watch the video in slow motion or frame by frame. You will be able to see how crisp the on/off cycle is, if there is run-on flow, or major big fat drips, etc. I had to do it in a dark room with narrowly focused LED flashlights or cat toy lazers. You will want a black background so the mist shows up well.
Here are a few of my test videos. I think the timing was set to 0.7 sec ON, and around 1 minute off, but dont remember for sure. You can easily see most of the mist goes straight to the bottom, but some hangs for much longer. Those are the smallest droplets. So, I may be flowing at .8 GPH, but maybe only .5 gallons of that is "hanging" as usable, quality mist.
Here is an earlier test.
and these are Hypro nozzles - which sucked big time for me. The ugly LED is so I can tell exactly when the timer kicked ON/OFF so I could compare the mist quality to the time. You can also see large droplets coming from the Hypros. Thats due to their crappy ADV's mostly. The flow rates measure way above the stated .8GPH. Closer to 1.2 IIRC.
Your totes will work, - many others have done that - but Im afraid they are still too short. I think Atomizer recommended 16" minimum height and I think that is too short. You will want to tip them so no water stands in the bottom if possible. Other wise, you will end up with puddles. That may not be bad, but again - excess water means no fuzzy root hairs. If you are using aquarium pumps to empty the totes, you're going to have deep water in the bottom. Thats not a deal breaker, but the roots will go straight for it and it reduces the vertical room for fuzzy roots to form. Again, not a deal breaker, but not ideal if you want fuzzy hairs.
Im using these timers at the moment. They seem to work well, and are cheap, but the shortest time interval is 0.1 second. I like that they use solid state relays. These only handle 12 volt loads, but my solenoids are 12V so thats fine. I use different timers for curculating pumps - sonoffs.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J5JSE0Y/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
As far as timing, I think 300 seconds OFF is probably too long unless you have really great hang times. The best I have been able to get is around 1 to 2 minutes at most of an almost reasonably dense mist hanging around. The vast majority of your droplets will fall out pretty quick. The ones that hang around the longest will be the smallest - sub 20 micron sizes most likely - but they dont feed the roots very well. Too small a droplet size is too dry. Too big is too wet. You want the porridge just right
I started with 0.5 to 0.7 sec ON and a max of around 80 seconds OFF. Im almost ready to harvest and Im now at 0.9 ON x 41 seconds OFF for a little under 2 gallons/day total flow rate for my single plant - but - each setup will behave differently, so you will have to let the roots tell you what timing works best. Just dont let them dry out. They wont die if they are too wet - you just wont get fuzzy hairs.
Id recommend you try one plant in one tote for starters to get a feel for how the plant will react and what timing works best in your setup.
