Testing the Aerolife True HPA AA (Air Atomized) System -First run

[Trichy Bastard]

What's an aero thread without at least one troll- seems to be pretty standard issue, except for G-love's thread. Then again I found the limees to come across a bit more professional all around for some reason. I can't say I didn't get a little giggle out of this all- especially with the random dude dropping in the cartoon- but lets get back on topic.

If today goes as planned- I'll be cutting the holes for my net pots and gonna toss a clone or two in this thing soon and see what gives. i've decided on putting in 2 (3") netpots catecorner from eachother and will take come pics to illustrate after the work is done. I searched the hardware store for some type of metal tubing that would work as a heat exchanger in the bottom of the chamber- I decided to try some flexible natural gas line as it's metal, but not copper and it seems to be coated with some sort of durable yellow paint finish anyway. My hope is that it, in combination with the air and nutes being chilled should be enough to offset the little heat that makes it through the chamber's insulation.

 

[PetFlora]

Thought you might like to see my roots (sans accum, solenoids, CVs... Just a touch of dialing in needed. Currently ~ 1 sec (Sentinel not 100% accurate at 1 sec) /1:45 (lights on- 14 hrs) 3:45 (lights off)

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Thought you might like to see my roots (sans accum, solenoids, CVs... Just a touch of dialing in needed. Currently ~ 1 sec (Sentinel not 100% accurate at 1 sec) /1:45 (lights on- 14 hrs) 3:45 (lights off)

View attachment 2138077View attachment 2138078

Thanks for sharing. You might like the idea of these Aerolife nozzles alot. If they do indeed work as they are supposed to, you can run without all of those things and just swap out your water pump for an air compressor and might get some beautiful accumulator style roots out of it.

 

[Atomizer]

The pump wouldnt go to waste, you could use it to run a hp cloner

 

[Trichy Bastard]

The pump wouldnt go to waste, you could use it to run a hp cloner

True, although in my case I'm thinking at the least this aerolife should make good a aero cloner too, if nothing else it probably has a best chance for that. However, if this AA system works- I have a mind to create a hp backup system incase the power/compressor ever fails.

 

[Atomizer]

It`ll be cheaper to clone using HP, you`ll put a fair bit of mileage on the compressor keeping the stems wet enough to grow roots.
A 12v timer/solenoid and a decent footpump would be good enough for a short term backup

 

[Trichy Bastard]

It`ll be cheaper to clone using HP, you`ll put a fair bit of mileage on the compressor keeping the stems wet enough to grow roots.
A 12v timer/solenoid and a decent footpump would be good enough for a short term backup

Aye, smart with the footpump... Damn you're good... lol

 

[PetFlora]

The pump wouldn't go to waste, you could use it to run a hp cloner

First TB, yes I am keeping an eye your AA rig for sure. Tell us again why you went with their tiny chamber. lol

Atomizer I tried using my back up 8800 in an hp cloner in a different room. The problem was/is the timer. I would need to purchase another deep cycle timer. I tried it with an ART DNe knock off (~ $60), but the lowest on cycle is > 20 seconds. I now use it on my 21st Century F & D rig, where it is better matched. I went to this out of desperation last time around, not realizing my timer was set at 12 hours, instead of 24, so plants were wilted every morning + my Hanna pH meter was dieing, providing false high pH readings. I kept adding acid until it occurred to me I was using way more acid than ever before. Cooked the plant from the inside out, but salvaged ~ 50%.

For starters/clones I bought a 45L/hr air pump and run 4 large Oxystones. Works great.

I added 15 seconds to the pause after posting the root pics, and seem to have more root hairs in just 24 hours. Big problem here is erratic weather. Mid 80s with low 70 nights dropped to mid 70s and mid 50s nights for the prior 3 days, now going back up to low 80s/low 70s. This puts room rh/temps all over the place and therefor harder to dial in the shy root hairs.

FYI: My 8800 is now 3 yo and still running fine. But I bought a back up at the time, due to the many posted concerns about life expectancy without an accum. Later realized the caution was for the Flo-tech pumps

 

[Atomizer]

If you were more local i could have let you have a timer, i have three TEC-11`s just gathering dust (fixed 2 second pulse and a variable 1-120 minute pause) they`ll switch 10-30v AC/DC at 1amp.

http://jorc.thomasnet.com/item/electronictimers/tec-11-electronic-timer/8003?

 

[PetFlora]

If you were more local i could have let you have a timer, i have three TEC-11`s just gathering dust (fixed 2 second pulse and a variable 1-120 minute pause) they`ll switch 10-30v AC/DC at 1amp.

http://jorc.thomasnet.com/item/electronictimers/tec-11-electronic-timer/8003?

Nice of you to offer. I couldn't tell a thing from the link. Their Enlarge button is a joke. FYI I live in S FL, but I think you are across the pond, no?

 

[Atomizer]

aye, way across the pond. There`s not much to see on the timers, a tactile test button, a yellow led and a rotary for the pause time adjustment.

 

[Trichy Bastard]

First TB, yes I am keeping an eye your AA rig for sure. Tell us again why you went with their tiny chamber. lol

Well, I thought it only fair to try the whole system as sold firstly, not to mention it's quite insulated from heat with 3 plys of foam inside the core, and since heat's been my personal issue it made sense to me.

 

[Atomizer]

Thought you might like to see my roots (sans accum, solenoids, CVs... Just a touch of dialing in needed. Currently ~ 1 sec (Sentinel not 100% accurate at 1 sec) /1:45 (lights on- 14 hrs) 3:45 (lights off)

View attachment 2138077View attachment 2138078

The roots look like they got too warm or maybe too dry at some point, if you can keep the chamber around 65F-70F you`ll do better.
A few tweaks could help but even with the best will in the world you`ll struggle to get roots that look like this.

 

[Trichy Bastard]

The roots look like they got too warm or maybe too dry at some point, if you can keep the chamber around 65F-70F you`ll do better.
A few tweaks could help but even with the best will in the world you`ll struggle to get roots that look like this.
View attachment 2143765

Beautiful specimen Atomizer

So, I have worked out most of what I felt I needed to move forward with the Aerolife. Got the temps sorted out and now I'm just going to drill out my netpot locations, add in the rootscreen I already prepared, and work out how I want the reservoir logistics to be. I am fairly certain I will have some cuttings in there before the weekend's end, so stay tuned guys...

 

[PetFlora]

Yeah. Yeah. I have had and do get them, but we had a brief winter and the weather is not conducive. I need to ac the room, but that is not in today's budget, so I suffer with less than ideal roots. Here's today's pics. All HPA plants are ~ 11-12".

EDIT: Removed at TBs request. Sorry unable to delete photo attachments

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Yeah. Yeah. I have had and do get them, but we had a brief winter and the weather is not conducive. I need to ac the room, but that is not in today's budget, so I suffer with less than ideal roots. Here's today's pics. All HPA plants are ~ 11-12".

My 21st Century F & D is rockin big time. The lant in the foreground has literally quadrupled in < 10 days. It looks bigger but is actually in a small AP + a 6" stand to get closer to the light. The one in the back is ina 1G AP, sitting on the bottom of the tray. I think the plants love the extra humidity created due to high walls

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They look healthy, getting the light closer will keep the stretch down. Is that a cloudtops nozzle I see in the pic there? I thought the whole articulating business was so important to you, or do you like the mist those put out better?

In the future, post this sort of stuff in the Hp-aero thread as I am really trying to keep this one dedicated to the aerolife testing. Thanks guys

 

[dickkhead]

glad I found this follow up thread Im SUBD up and going to be looking into one of these myself have you talk to him about a bigger chamber size? and I did stumble across a thread where fatman was talking about using an oiless compresser why not use that? did you get that pic i emailed you of that huge cart one wheels that was in my grocery store but it looked like the perfect chamber gna do some research for it.... SUBING

 

[Trichy Bastard]

glad I found this follow up thread Im SUBD up and going to be looking into one of these myself have you talk to him about a bigger chamber size? and I did stumble across a thread where fatman was talking about using an oiless compresser why not use that? did you get that pic i emailed you of that huge cart one wheels that was in my grocery store but it looked like the perfect chamber gna do some research for it.... SUBING

Nice to come along for the ride ... The idea is to use a silent dental compressor like a Bambi or Jun-Air. I was fortunate enough for now that my craftsman is silenced enough sitting in my foamed up hydraulic chamber (what a waste to use it only for this right now-lol)... Anyway since I really want to explore this system and AA was always on my to do list- I'm giving it a go. One thing is that the compressor on an old regfrigerator is obviously silent and made to last for years. You can take it out and mod it to run on plain air into a reciever tank. There are plenty of you tube vids on how to DIY. Otherwise the silent/oiless compressors are pretty expensive anywhere from 300 to over 1k... (Not to mention heavy shipping charges). Luckily the AA nozzles don't need very high pressure (usually around 30-40 psi), but it's still nice to have higher pressures stored so the compressor comes on less, although with a silent one it's not a big deal. If you can tolerate the sound of a refrigerator, that's about all the noise it'll make.

Regarding larger chamber size, you could use a large rubbermaid trashcan if your indoors. The AA nozzles allow for alot more coverage and less mist density so you can use a larger range of chamber sizes and just adjust the pressures or siphon height and feed timings. One AA nozzle is plenty to fog a chamber that might need up to 8 hydraulic nozzles as Atomizer mentioned.

 

[Atomizer]

Oiless compressors sound good but they wont last as long as an oil lubricated because the teflon coating eventually wears out

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Oiless compressors sound good but they wont last as long as an oil lubricated because the teflon coating eventually wears out

Good to know. I read that a oiled silent compressor can be made completely silent with an MDF enclosure, but they're pretty darn quiet to begin with- probably not much louder than a hp-aero water pump from what I can tell.