Automated PH Control

[Guest]

Hey Nut_Job...Did you ever get that Nanny? I've been procrastinating, waiting for another report.

Yo...I'm finally getting my parts together for my DIY, including Welco pumps. It'll be the same thing as a Nanny but I'm getting the more accurate controller. I talked to the local store and seems like they're gonna build some units to test market and am pretty sure the price will be better than a Nanny, particularly if they go with an APT pump instead of a Welco.

I'm hoping to have a report available for my unit in a few weeks.

 

[Grownz]

adverse, I'd like to know how the Welco pumps compare to the APT pumps! Seems you'd be the man to talk to in a couple of weeks.
I'm still waiting to have some extra funds available so that i can justify the expense to my partner. lol

 

[BlindDate]

Grownz...I've used the APT pumps before and I can tell you that they are Crap. The little one has a cheezy thin plastic housing and uses steel roll pins as rollers. If you are pumping PH up/down, the fumes from he acid whift thru the tubing and corode those pins. They are also not made by APT but rather Williams Pump in the UK (Google it). If you buy them direct from Williams, you can get them cheaper still, but I wouldn't bother. Since you are already spending several hundred $ to build a controler who cares about an extra 30-40 for a much better pump. Go with the Welco.

 

[Ono Nadagin]

are you using hosing made for acids? there should be no off gasing through the correct hose type

 

[Grownz]

If the right tubing was used for acid delivery i'd be very unimpressed if the damage to the tubing was a result of the pump itself. If the only problem you in counted was the tubing i'm sure that better quality tubing could be used??
How was the pump apart from the tubing faliure?

 

[Guest]

are you using hosing made for acids? there should be no off gasing through the correct hose type

My thought exactly. I know APT offers a selection of tubing for a variety of uses.

 

[BlindDate]

Grownz...You misunderstood me. It is not the tube that becomes damaged, but rather the pump rollers. All tubing is gas permeable to some extent. Gases from strong acid/base solutions will escape through the porosity of the tube and fuck up metal fast. Buy a pump that uses all plastic parts for the housing and rollers. The small Williams Pump that APT sells uses steel rollers, not good. There are several compatible tubes for pumping acid/base chems, Viton is the best, but it is still gas permeable. This cannot be helped regardless of which tubing you use.

Another bad thing about buying pumps from APT. Those Williams pumps come from the UK as a sealed unit to be thrown away after the tube wears out. They are not made to replace tubing but rather to replace the entire pump head. APT breaks the housing apart and installs the tube of your choice. Problem is that in doing so they often damage the cheezy plastic tabs that were welded shut by the manufacture and the housing becomes very weak. I know all this from experience. Do not buy those pumps.

 

[Grownz]

Ah yes. Sorry i didn't understand.. I thought the right tubing wouldn't be gas permeable as you say.
A pump with a plastic roller it is then.
That's good information, thanks for explaining why they aren't as good the Welcos rather than just saying so.

 

[Ono Nadagin]

BlindDate.. sorry bud but I am very sure you are incorrect... if you use tubing made for use with acid/bases they are not permiable and will not offgass through the tubing and damage the pump.

The tubing in question is designed for medical and scientific lab situations and just will not act in the manner you say it will... you must be using the incorrect tubing.... this makes me think you may have been sold the incorrect tubing by mistake.

Could you have possibly had the container of PH +/- to near the pump and in being so close the solutions fumes were able to migrate to the pumps rollers?... as in Deadlyfoez pics he has the solution entirely to close and it is fully capable of causing corrosion from a few feet away... these are highly corrosive fumes and the simple pass through the lid method of inserting the tubing into the container of PH +/- will not stop fumes from escapng... in most labs the soutions are contained in isolated hazmat locker to prevent just such occourences

If you have any documentation please post it as it stands in direct contridiction to everything I learned in university and in reading pump and tubing manufacturers webpages and product documentation.

Also if you can pls post pics of the pumps weak points as you se them and the pics of the failures you experienced.

 

[reaperz]

This is a very informative post with some great links!! Thanks to Uncle Bob for starting this thread and Curmudgeon for the links and posts!
Here's another link from the site you posted - http://www.automatedaquariums.com/h_turt.htm I like the idea of Datalogging!

The following contains stoner ramblings and day dreaming!

I was thinking, if you set up a PH controller and TDS controller you could (Theroretically) go a whole grow with out messing with your nutrient solution. But then it struck me, you can only have one set point on the TDS meter. You would have to up the setpoint when your plants required it.
Wouldn't it be cool if you could set it up, to up the PPMs say a few hundred every several days or so, depending on your schedule... Kinda like a timer idea. Couple this with res top-up, enviroment control and some way to raise your lights etc etc.. You could set up a system and come back 8-10 weeks later! lol J/K. I'd still check every few days even if i had complete control over everything. Just a thought...

SERIOUSLY.....now, i looked over and read the links and this question still burned in my mind, can the TDS controller control more than 1 pump like Curmudgeon says? If so wouldn't it need more than 1 relay?
And also i think the diluting idea is probably the best approach reguardless of how many pumps your activating. What would you dilute your top-up solution to? Say your setpoint for you res is set to 800ppm. Would you dilute your solution(s) to 1000ppm? Or higher? Suppose it would be a case of trail and error or it dosen't matter at all because eventually it will reach it's set point...

Wow, i ramble....Maybe i'm just too stoned!lol

sounds like something a commercial grower wants, all he has to do is trim and dry the goods, then ship it.

 

[Guest]

sorry guy my camera broke or i'd show you mine i made thought i got from another site. please forgive icmag your still my #1 site....... but here the link think ya'll will find this handy it does work.

http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-faqs/58098-build-ph-doser-controller-under-100-tutorial.html

icmag rocks

 

[Guest]

That Milwaukee controller is only .2 pH accurate. For 85 or so $ I'd rather kick up to a Hanna mini controller for about $125 for .1 accuracy. The Hanna unit is also switchable for up or down use. In that tutorial you linked they also forgot to price out the DC adapter and pH probe. That Milwaukee unit does not have over run protection to control overdosing and can't tell if the dosing contact is fused or not. I don't like it.

That 30 gph pump mentioned in the tutorial kicks out 1/2 gal per minute so you must dilute the down/up significantly. It would be useless for a small res setup IMO. Also a potential problem is adding too much of the diluted solution over time and you might overflow the res. I would not use just any old off the shelf pump to pump a highly acid or alkaline solution. That tutorial is interesting but flawed.

 

[Guest]

Another bad thing about buying pumps from APT. Those Williams pumps come from the UK as a sealed unit to be thrown away after the tube wears out. They are not made to replace tubing but rather to replace the entire pump head. APT breaks the housing apart and installs the tube of your choice. Problem is that in doing so they often damage the cheezy plastic tabs that were welded shut by the manufacture and the housing becomes very weak. I know all this from experience. Do not buy those pumps.

'The' problem you talk about is with the SP 200 pumps and not the SP 100 pumps. As for straight dosing of up or down you'd want the SP 100 pumps anyway.

 

[nUt_jOb]

happy 4/20.. sorry i forgot about this thread.. im still messing with my sms122 trying to make it happy.. I will try getting a better dosing pump but right now the meter is reading all over the place.. possibly due to fowled probe.. might try to clean.. those things are pricey and only seem to last me 3-5months at best.

 

[BlindDate]

Ono....

I threw away several SP100 pump heads. Don't have pictures. They also use a 1/8" diameter shaft with a "D" flat cut on the end to engage the rotor. VERY easy to strip.

Don't buy those pumps just because they are cheap. You get what you pay for.

 

[Guest]

I do wanna say I'd agree that APT pumps are inferior to a Welco unit. I have some Welcos in hand and they are sweet...except you need a DC adapter to run them. Good thing about that is you can adjust speed/flow rate by adjusting the input voltage. Radio Shack has cheapie, about $20, DC units that are adjustable. I've heard APT will introduce a new pump in about 30-60 days. Good thing about APT stuff is it's line voltage.

I kind of got stuck on pH probe selection as I initially got it wrong but think I got that straightened out.

 

[reaperz]

you think its possible to have an automaticed ec?

automated ph, ec temperature, watering, raising light hieght, all you would have to do is harvest(automatically lol)

 

[oldsmoker]

I found a sms 122 on ebay and set it up with a iks vario 1 pro but it seems to give
to much ph down, set the 122 to 6,4 and I end up with ph of 4.0 not good
is it possible to dilute ph down with ro water so its not as strong and maybe stop the
sudden drop in ph ?
my input tube is mounted on the probe and my res only holds 30 liters

 

[Guest]

you think its possible to have an automaticed ec?

automated ph, ec temperature, watering, raising light hieght, all you would have to do is harvest(automatically lol)

Automated pH is easy, temp can be controlled in various ways, ec is a little different story as best thing I can figure is weekly or so res dumps and auto fill. You'd need to run a fairly simple formula run by an auto ec meter, like Hanna puts out, and put the multi parts of the formula diluted in separated containers. The ec controller would drive multiple peristaltic pumps feeding an equal (volume) amount of solution thus ensuring a pretty accurate nute formula does. I would think the pH controller would need to be controlled by a digital timer so it's off while the res is being dumped, filled, nutes added THEN pH should be adjusted before the next feed cycle. My res pH and ec rises through the cycle and this can be controlled by having an ec controller add plain old tap water, nice sweet (7.0 pH) low ppm well water for me, to lower ec which would raise pH so the pH controller would step in and adjust. You could also have a reserve res on an ec controller to add premixed/pH'd solution to the main res as need and an extra set of controllers on the main res to tweak a little.

As for the lights...best I can figure is a remote camera system viewed over the net and lights on a motor that's manually controlled over the net to raise and lower as needed....but then you're gonna need to do some training, pruning and staking/trellis netting at particular stages unless you go SOG with a net setup already.

Sure...you can pretty much automate anything but why would you want to?

 

[[]D[][]V[][]D]

Sure...you can pretty much automate anything but why would you want to?

Because every plant and strain has a specific light intensity, temperature, humidity, ph , ec , co2 level *at a specific time of growth* that will enable it to grow at it's maximum potential. The longer any of these parameters are out of line the lower the yeild and quality of the final product. Or to switch it around, the longer these parameters match the plants needs the higher the yield and the better quality product.