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[BubbleCat]

Tomorrow I will get a power supply for the pump. I hoped it would take longer, but: The battery I am using to power the pump already startes failing to supply the pump sufficiently. It is a funny coincidence that the battery also will, if I let it discjarge any further, fail to trigger the relais in the timer, effectively making it a deep discharge protection by accident.
Anyways, as I do not have a charger in this place the maintainance procedure usually consists of starting a motorcycle, installing the battery in it and taking the whole thing around town for a short time. From experience it is not the easiest thing to take at least the most cultivated bike in reach, the NA 1000 cc, around town on icy roads at night, in fact it takes an awefull lot of care and concentration. So I have switched the thing off and plan on hooking it up to the mains tomorrow. At te same time I will gain first experience how long it can remain ahut off. I believe it wont hit the plants too hard as the roots barely grow out of the clay pellets yet and said pellets retain some moisture. To further improve the situation until tomorrow I have switched on the bubble stones hoping they splash around a healthy amount of water or at least keep the air in the bucket humid.

I will use the opportunity of the pump not coming on to shorten the feed tube and use a part of it as a replacement for the weak silicone pickup tube.

1 Like steveoi812 likes this.

[BubbleCat]

I am getting roots on all plants and some clay pellets tend to develop a white surface, I suspect some kind of harmless mold. As soon the plants have established I will H2O2 the water in the system hoping to effectively H2O2 the whole thing.

I have replaced the battery with a power supply that I connected to a wall outlet and turned it down a bit as the thing I always feared could happen happened: A hose came off a nozzle, spraying water everywhere. Luckily I was awake and watching the system work at that time so I could fix it right away. I am considering clamping the hoses on the nozzles.

One last change has to be done:
The pickup tube draws a little air sometimes, possible solution s include:

raise fluid levels
clamp or glue down tube
weight down front end of tube
design an actual pickup to sit in there and guarantee intake from the bottom most location.

One annoying thing: The pellets are too small or the pots mesh is too wide. When carelessly manipulating the pots pellets might drop out into the reservoir where they will find their way into the pickup (which doesnt have any kind of filter yet, luckily the pickup has the same dimension as common fuel lines).

So far so good

1 Like plantlight likes this.

[Ian Morris]

Good point about the solid medium, but why not the smaller hole (not overall size) netty pot?  I found tailoring the hole size on the pot to the smallest root size possible produced identically and were easier to handle. 

[BubbleCat]

Well I went to the grow shop and said "netpot". Guy said "big or small". End of the story: I bought "big" net pots.

Consider the whole thing a mockup. I am curious about what and how and I am experimenting with a system that basically does the job to make exactly theese discoveries. So on the list for a final version there is smaller grid net pots or larger pellets now.

[BubbleCat]

Little update:

Work is over my head, yet I invested say 30 minutes to clean out the container (a lot of clay dust from the pellets), exchange the solution, raised it to ~500 micro Siemens, and unclogged a nozzle that had a plastic chip from the rough cutting work inside.

1 Like plantlight likes this.

[nobody]

Next time soak the clay pellets for about a week in neutral (pH 6.8 -7) water. This will remove all dust and prevent pH fluctuations later on. Lots of people (and package labels) say this is not needed but I have experienced other wise a couple times.


nobody

1 Like BubbleCat likes this.

[BubbleCat]

What I already was concerned about seems to be happening:

As shown my timer switch is not actually limited, just not designed for such a simple task, so I only get to spray them all 90 minutes which might be too little. The roots tips start browning, I think I basically have aur pruning going on there. I do have hope that once the roots are more they will be able to hold water themselves, but on the long time I need a better (simpler) timing circuit.

[BubbleCat]

It has always been an issue and right now I do not have the time or ressources to fix it: The thing is slowly ruining my floor by never really stopping to spill tiny amounts of water. This can be fixed.

So right now I am deciding if I just let it, as I will be doing the floor anyways already, or move it to the bathroom and employ the grow lamp on its behalf or idk.

Judging by the temperatures this "winter" it could even go outside.

Update: The containers stack. So I can have the electrics in a container under the actual one and if any the electrics will get a bit wet. Lets see hiw that does

Another update: It is definately the wrong time, as I am too busy otherwise, and the wrong place for this experiment. Besides not having time I do not have the ressources to make the necessary improvements in this place. The light is too low at this time of the year. The risk and potencial damage is too high, it already happened twice that a nozzle clogged and a hose came loose, in both cases it was luck I was near. The experiment is on a hold, I will find a way to enable the cuttings to sustain and will refine the design as soon as I have time and can reside in the place where I have the ressources and a more duravle environment.

1 Like plantlight likes this.