So you know whats better then one dripper on a gallon of nutes? Two!! And guess whats better then two?... Yep, THREE!!! So yeah, i'm making progress. I've got all but one order of parts delivered, unfortunately its the 3 noids for the nutes. But in the mean time i'm playing with how to lower the flow rate on the gallon. I only NEED it to drip a few mL a day, and no dripper comes close to those numbers, .5GPH being the lowest. It'll take 2.5 minutes to top off 2 gallons in my res, and the water level controller will pop all the noids at once, and unfortunately keep the nute noids open that whole time too. With one dripper in line, it drips 8mL in 2.5min. That's well over the minimum i would add of one of the chemicals, so unacceptable. Two drippers inline lowers it to 5mL, and three lowers it to 3mL over 2.5 minutes. Which is lower then the minimum id add of one of the chemicals, and able to be factored in, so i think it's doable. The more mL someone would auto dose the easier everything would be.
With my small res, i kind of like the idea of a few mL (as long as it's a consistent amount) dripping into the res as the res swirls full of fresh water. Because no doubt what will kick on the water fill, and the measured nutes dropping into the tank, is the pump lowering the res level enough, so the pump will be sucking from the res a bit, as it's being filled. Not ideal, but i think adding 2 gallons back to a 6 gallon res, with 4 already in there, and having minimum a third of the nutes dripping in as it fills, will suffice to dilute things enough, and keep the pump from sucking up any concentrated amount of solution, at any time.
A 'normally open' or (NO) solenoid in place of the drippers, that fired closed, when the ones below the syringe opened, would be tits, but (NO) noids are like $30 a pop, i don't want to go there less i have to. Oh yeah by the way, i wasn't ok with just a measured amount of 1/4 line being the adjustment for dosing, so i factored in a syringe, pictured below. $4 at the pet store. One line going into it is the drip line coming from the bottle of nutes, the other, since the noid will make an air lock inside the syringe, is an air return line so it can fill to the amount i tell it to. I'm going to place the noid as close to the syringe tip as i can, actually i plan to put the tip of the syringe right into it, to cut down on liquid outside the syringe. I also ran a little over a foot of wire down the 1/4 air return line leading out of the syringe, since fluid will fill that line a bit, and the less volume in the line, the less solution outside the syringe.
.5gph dripper is above the syringe, they drip too damn much, so i pulled them apart, and wrapped teflon tape around the inner workings. It really helps to slow the flow. I did it to all 3 drippers, 2 not pictured.
drip.. drip.....
So I've been messing with this syringe for 2 days now, and when the chemical level reaches the amount i set, no more drip drip. Just a tiny bit goes into the air line. I gotta test how consistently accurate it doses, a full bottle vs an almost empty gallon bottle of nutes, so the verdict is still out on the dripper, but at least the syringe gives me easy adjustability.
EDIT: May 5
Liquid Level Control functioning!
That was definitely something I couldn't make on my own without exceeding the cost of just buying one. Again, not saying don't do it.
