AeroJunkie's High Pressure Air-Assisted Hydro-Atomized Aeroponic System (HPAAHAAS)

[thump easy]

Fuck what a newb i feel like an ass man it was all i nevor figured this happend to me in 2010 the fucken meter must have gone bad pm was of buy alot the fucken ppm slash ph meter was broken i went to buy new nutes new fucken fillters for the r.o. water new fucken ultravilet light and still the gunk would film up in a mater of a fucken day so i thought what the fuck right? and i went to adjust the meter it didnt calibrate no more!! i put new bateries fuck me i remember this bad lil portable bitch was a good thing back in the day i needed all my plugs so i got portable and well its so old the wire started riping the hole things been threw a few homes and well i have to berry her in the back yard i will be holding a serimony service later tommorow about noon... I WILL BE SPEEKING ON HER BEHALF.. SHE HAS SEEN SO MANY KIMIES SO MANY AND SHE HELP ALL THE WAY THREW THICK AND THIN SHE BEN WITH US>>> ill probly cry... on another note fuck those bitches in the chambers bounced back like a flash...

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Fuck what a newb i feel like an ass man it was all i nevor figured this happend to me in 2010 the fucken meter must have gone bad pm was of buy alot the fucken ppm slash ph meter was broken i went to buy new nutes new fucken fillters for the r.o. water new fucken ultravilet light and still the gunk would film up in a mater of a fucken day so i thought what the fuck right? and i went to adjust the meter it didnt calibrate no more!! i put new bateries fuck me i remember this bad lil portable bitch was a good thing back in the day i needed all my plugs so i got portable and well its so old the wire started riping the hole things been threw a few homes and well i have to berry her in the back yard i will be holding a serimony service later tommorow about noon... I WILL BE SPEEKING ON HER BEHALF.. SHE HAS SEEN SO MANY KIMIES SO MANY AND SHE HELP ALL THE WAY THREW THICK AND THIN SHE BEN WITH US>>> ill probly cry... on another note fuck those bitches in the chambers bounced back like a flash...

wow... Just wow... The meter is in a better place now...

 

[Atomizer]

See the thing about Atomizer is I don't think I can pin him to a single incorrect quote... The guy is a walking source of perfection when it comes to his info... We use spell-check while he uses truth-check
If ever he is cocky with his info, he's earned the right to be confident...

I dont mean to be cocky, i just have an intense dislike for inaccurate information..especially if its coming from an unscrupulous salesman to get you to buy something expensive.
Experience from a wide variety of (weird) hobbies, jobs and interests comes in useful for truth checking, holding an A-class amateur radio licence for example

 

[indrhrvest]

I dont mean to be cocky, i just have an intense dislike for inaccurate information..especially if its coming from an unscrupulous salesman to get you to buy something expensive.
Experience from a wide variety of (weird) hobbies, jobs and interests comes in useful for truth checking, holding an A-class amateur radio licence for example

I'm going to probably end up testing one out. I can check EMF fields if you like. It will really boil down to how well shielded the unit is.

 

[aerojunkie]

Ok, I need thoughts. I have been contemplating the design of this next chamber and I have all the resources to fabricate, I just want to run the idea past you guys. I am thinking rather than using a compressor and condenser I would instead just incorporate a coil within the walls flush against my inner polystyrene sheeting. I was considering using polyurethane foam sheets because they have approximately a 33% greater thermal resistance. However polystyrene is cheaper and more readily available in my area. Ill be lucky to get an R value of 8 with my polystyrene whereas with urethane I can easily get a 12 in 2" walls.

Now my idea for the coil is to use aluminum 1/4 tubing (less than half the price of copper) 100' should be enough for 1 2x4x8 chamber. My thought is to bend my coil as needed and then use a standard hot iron to heat the tubing while pressing it into the side of each wall and floor. By using one length of coil I can avoid any potential leaks. With this system I can more easily utilize a remote chiller to keep the heat out of the room. I can also more easily run multiple chambers on a single chiller.

I want to hear your thoughts and suggestions. I have all sorts of ideas ranging from SS or Aluminum walls interior and exterior walls, to building a mold and pouring the polyurethane. Any improvement that can be made to the design prior to fabrication is a bonus. Keep in mind I don't have an unlimited budget.

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Ok, I need thoughts. I have been contemplating the design of this next chamber and I have all the resources to fabricate, I just want to run the idea past you guys. I am thinking rather than using a compressor and condenser I would instead just incorporate a coil within the walls flush against my inner polystyrene sheeting. I was considering using polyurethane foam sheets because they have approximately a 33% greater thermal resistance. However polystyrene is cheaper and more readily available in my area. Ill be lucky to get an R value of 8 with my polystyrene whereas with urethane I can easily get a 12 in 2" walls.

Now my idea for the coil is to use aluminum 1/4 tubing (less than half the price of copper) 100' should be enough for 1 2x4x8 chamber. My thought is to bend my coil as needed and then use a standard hot iron to heat the tubing while pressing it into the side of each wall and floor. By using one length of coil I can avoid any potential leaks. With this system I can more easily utilize a remote chiller to keep the heat out of the room. I can also more easily run multiple chambers on a single chiller.

I want to hear your thoughts and suggestions. I have all sorts of ideas ranging from SS or Aluminum walls interior and exterior walls, to building a mold and pouring the polyurethane. Any improvement that can be made to the design prior to fabrication is a bonus. Keep in mind I don't have an unlimited budget.

I've also been trying to deal with chamber heat. So far I've found the best way is in a reasonably insulated chamber that still gets too hot, use a chiller to cool a water bath in an icechest, then run your coils of air/nutes through this bath and to recirculate the bath through the chiller. Then run your pump output lines that lead through the chiller as some simple 1/2" coils of clear tubing around the bottom of your chamber and back to the ice chest, constantly recirculating. The cooling effect will spread around the chamber with the mistings and convection. I have constanlty had a temp probe in my chamber and it has brought the temps down 10-20 degrees over ambient temps and successfully kept my chamber under 70f even in direct sunlight and 90 degree weather. The chamber uses less than 1.5 inches of polyurethane foam, so you should be fine. My only concern is how the roots will react to being ontop of these 50f coils when they touchdown, but I have a silkscreen frame I may insert above them, although I do not know if it will affect the transfer of cold to the area above the silkscreen as the silkscreen becomes almost an air barrier once wetted.

Remember that your aluminum coils may collect condensation, also I am not sure how inert alumninum will be in nute salts and low ph. You could consider adding a thin sheet of foam on top of the coils so basically the inner walls of the chamber fight heat and cool the chamber. Obviously have less foam between the coils and inside of chamber, than the outside foam walls of the chamber- so the cool radiates towards the inside of the chamber, but is buffered by the thin foam inner wall. (Think internally cooled chamber walls).

 

[aerojunkie]

Remember that your aluminum coils may collect condensation, also I am not sure how inert alumninum will be in nute salts and low ph. You could consider adding a thin sheet of foam on top of the coils so basically the inner walls of the chamber fight heat and cool the chamber. Obviously have less foam between the coils and inside of chamber, than the outside foam walls of the chamber- so the cool radiates towards the inside of the chamber, but is buffered by the thin foam inner wall. (Think internally cooled chamber walls).

Internally cooled chamber walls is what I am designing. I am going to use a polystyrene SHEET (same as I am using now) to cover the coil and complete the wall structure. The coil would be resting directly against the polystyrene SHEET and insulated by the 2" polystyrene FOAM (I am not yelling just differentiating). It would be a closed loop system and with such a small coil I could inexpensively use glycol at 100% and recirculate fluid well under 32*. I personally dont like the idea of a waterbath (dont ask me why it just rubs me uneasy) and I dont want an exposed coil in the chamber needing to be cleaned each cycle. The aluminum will be perfect for propylene glycol in a closed loop system and I dont think condensation will be too much of an issue as long as I seal the coil within the walls. Im not 100% on the condensation issue. ssentially this is the same design as a chest freezer with polystyrene rather than polyurethane and a chiller rather than freon.

 

[indrhrvest]

I've also been trying to deal with chamber heat.

Are you guys using these systems outside? The temperature of your chamber really shouldn't get any hotter than the ambient temp of your grow room. Maybe cooling the grow room would be an easier fix? I'm not really sure how you guys are set up.

 

[aerojunkie]

Are you guys using these systems outside? The temperature of your chamber really shouldn't get any hotter than the ambient temp of your grow room. Maybe cooling the grow room would be an easier fix? I'm not really sure how you guys are set up.

I live in a very hot area of the country. I only grow in the winter, my ambient temp never exceeds 85* in my enclosed sealed room. My roots can not survive in that environment. Chamber temps need to be below 70* min imo.

 

[aerojunkie]

Atomizer, how low do you recommend the lowest chamber temp?

 

[aerojunkie]

Are you guys using these systems outside? The temperature of your chamber really shouldn't get any hotter than the ambient temp of your grow room. Maybe cooling the grow room would be an easier fix? I'm not really sure how you guys are set up.

Most commercial hydro operations, as Im sure you know, utilize dwc for their systems. They are not as efficient with water, however it is much easier to maintain root temperatures. before my room was completed I began a cycle in my chamber and had great results. For some reason it didn't click that my chamber was in a detached garage with no means of regulating the ambient temps. Temps in the garage never exceeded 70* during the winter which is the reason my roots did ok. As soon as I finished my sealed room my temps rose to 85 on average because of my lights. My roots went to crap after that. This is why I originally asked about insulation in your design. Every grower comes to terms with different problems depending on the environment in which they grow. At the point I am in I am considering the redesign of all my chambers. If I were to put one in production I would build an exterior skin design utilizing a powder coated white aluminum sheet. I would Vaccum mold an inner lining using abs or polypropylene or possibly even high impact polystyrene. The lining would be very thin in order to allow a more rapid and efficient heat transfer. I would run either a freon coil or chiller coil against the inner wall adjacent the plastic lining. Fill the void (approx 2") with polyethylene foam (min 2lb density but preferably 4) and essentially build a refrigerator for roots.

 

[Atomizer]

Atomizer, how low do you recommend the lowest chamber temp?

If you go too low you`ll slow down the growth, 17C would be about as low as you`d want to go i think. If you have cold cooling coils on the floor of the chamber, a suspended mesh would be enough to give the roots the option of stopping short of the floor when they reach the cooler air near the coils. If there`s no mesh there they`ll have no choice but to hit the frigid floor

 

[indrhrvest]

Most commercial hydro operations, as Im sure you know, utilize dwc for their systems. They are not as efficient with water, however it is much easier to maintain root temperatures.

Ah.. Okay makes sense. Yeah the system I'm working on is designed specifically for CEA with HVAC.

Got my compressor in today.. clean, cool, dry medical grade air..

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Are you guys using these systems outside? The temperature of your chamber really shouldn't get any hotter than the ambient temp of your grow room. Maybe cooling the grow room would be an easier fix? I'm not really sure how you guys are set up.

yes, outside, and near the equator nonetheless

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Internally cooled chamber walls is what I am designing. I am going to use a polystyrene SHEET (same as I am using now) to cover the coil and complete the wall structure. The coil would be resting directly against the polystyrene SHEET and insulated by the 2" polystyrene FOAM (I am not yelling just differentiating). It would be a closed loop system and with such a small coil I could inexpensively use glycol at 100% and recirculate fluid well under 32*. I personally dont like the idea of a waterbath (dont ask me why it just rubs me uneasy) and I dont want an exposed coil in the chamber needing to be cleaned each cycle. The aluminum will be perfect for propylene glycol in a closed loop system and I dont think condensation will be too much of an issue as long as I seal the coil within the walls. Im not 100% on the condensation issue. ssentially this is the same design as a chest freezer with polystyrene rather than polyurethane and a chiller rather than freon.

I like the idea of cooling in the walls and is pretty much a design I have pondered myself. Another thing to consider, if you're going all out is that a small layer of vacuum has a huge r-value compared to anything else except aerogels which are crazy expensive. If you could make the walls vacuum sealed, you could probably just get away with chilling the lines. Why does a water bath make you uneasy- had a traumatic baptism or something You'll have to chill the air/nutes because if the walls are colder than them you will get condensation issues on the walls. I believe if you have enough insulation, then the waterbath is all that would be needed. The problem is I don't know how many inches of foam (4" maybe?) it would take to insulate well enough, hence the vacuum wall idea. They do sell vacuum panels for walk-ins etc, have to do a little googling and they may be pricey. I know you can buy a vacuum pump on ebay for under 50 bucks, just designing the panels to be sealed enough and withstand the forces is the hard part. I would probably keep a nipple on them somewhere where you could re-vac from time to time incase the vacuum loses strength over time through micro-seepage (I made that term up btw-lol)

 

[aerojunkie]

Ah.. Okay makes sense. Yeah the system I'm working on is designed specifically for CEA with HVAC.

Got my compressor in today.. clean, cool, dry medical grade air..

View attachment 2233664

Looks pricey. I was told that the air dryers are unnecessary being that they "blow off" the higher pressure 90+ psi in order to remove the vapor. The higher the pressure the more energy required to produce it, thus the more inefficient the system is if you are blowing it out of a tube to reduce or eliminate vapor. I am not too familiar with dryers so someone else may chime in. imo its unnecessary to remove vapor in an aero system anyway.

 

[aerojunkie]

I like the idea of cooling in the walls and is pretty much a design I have pondered myself. Another thing to consider, if you're going all out is that a small layer of vacuum has a huge r-value compared to anything else except aerogels which are crazy expensive. If you could make the walls vacuum sealed, you could probably just get away with chilling the lines. Why does a water bath make you uneasy- had a traumatic baptism or something You'll have to chill the air/nutes because if the walls are colder than them you will get condensation issues on the walls. I believe if you have enough insulation, then the waterbath is all that would be needed. The problem is I don't know how many inches of foam (4" maybe?) it would take to insulate well enough, hence the vacuum wall idea. They do sell vacuum panels for walk-ins etc, have to do a little googling and they may be pricey. I know you can buy a vacuum pump on ebay for under 50 bucks, just designing the panels to be sealed enough and withstand the forces is the hard part. I would probably keep a nipple on them somewhere where you could re-vac from time to time incase the vacuum loses strength over time through micro-seepage (I made that term up btw-lol)

Baptism the good Lord knows Im going to hell... Its been arranged.

I love your ideas and methods used to incorporate them into AA. I dont know what extra r-value I would get out of a vacuum within my walls but I would probably end up building a 6" wall before I was able to incorporate it into my system. As far as condensation is concerned, My walls within the chamber are always moist (that's what she said). So extra condensation will flow down either way.

I am considering only running a coil in my 2x8' walls, and my floor. I want to avoid any connections within the walls and it will be much easier to construct if I forget about the 2x4' walls.

Atomizer, what is your deepest chamber and do you find it necessary to go deeper than 24" my flower chamber is 36" but I dont think I will ever use that much space. Plus I don't want to keep my saturation levels up in a chamber that is too big if its not necessary.

 

[aerojunkie]

I spoke too soon, a vacuum insulated panel (vip) has a thermal resistance of up to 39 per inch! It would be awesome to utilize them in my chamber. One problem would be manufacturing the coil within the walls. I would need to build my chamber and then wrap it in custom sized panels. I would also have a problem with the lids, it would be almost impossible to place the lids in a vacuum due to the plant holes. Very sweet idea indeed.

 

[Atomizer]

Atomizer, what is your deepest chamber and do you find it necessary to go deeper than 24" my flower chamber is 36" but I dont think I will ever use that much space. Plus I don't want to keep my saturation levels up in a chamber that is too big if its not necessary.

Outdoor is 21", indoor is 18". If you have a chamber made out of vaccuum panels you`ll need to cool the air and nutes as no point having a super insulated chamber if you`re adding heat with every pulse. The insulation works both ways, a thermos flask will keep things hot as well as cold

 

[indrhrvest]

Looks pricey. I was told that the air dryers are unnecessary being that they "blow off" the higher pressure 90+ psi in order to remove the vapor. The higher the pressure the more energy required to produce it, thus the more inefficient the system is if you are blowing it out of a tube to reduce or eliminate vapor. I am not too familiar with dryers so someone else may chime in. imo its unnecessary to remove vapor in an aero system anyway.

It keeps internal corrosion down and adds life to your equipment. Plus the compressor will be installed in the grow room which will have higher humidity than average.