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Blumat auto watering
- Thread starter sunnydog
- Start date
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- Tags
- blumat drippers irrigation watering
I started w/ this kit-
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_75&product_id=145
It worked fine the first time around. Finding the 8mm line springy & hard to manage, I expanded on it to build manifolds w/ longer 3mm lines using more bits, like these-
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_68&product_id=97
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_68&product_id=87
& more of the supple 3mm tubing-
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_76&product_id=60
Their marketing strategy is clearly to get us to buy more stuff to improve installations. Pics in my albums. Putting the 8mm tubing in the oven on warm or in boiling water helps it relax a little bit.
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_75&product_id=145
It worked fine the first time around. Finding the 8mm line springy & hard to manage, I expanded on it to build manifolds w/ longer 3mm lines using more bits, like these-
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_68&product_id=97
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_68&product_id=87
& more of the supple 3mm tubing-
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_76&product_id=60
Their marketing strategy is clearly to get us to buy more stuff to improve installations. Pics in my albums. Putting the 8mm tubing in the oven on warm or in boiling water helps it relax a little bit.
Read the entire thread. It took me a while but it was time well spent. It was good to read all the various opinions on the different options. By reading the entire thread, I didn't have to post any questions, since all my questions were answered multiple times, although the answers to the questions were seldom the same and were often at odds with each other. With a little bit of common sense, it was not hard to figure out who knew what they were talking about and who were just blowing smoke.
Luckily, I ordered a couple of kits and some extra parts and 3mm and the flexible red 8MM hose when I was only about a third of the way through the thread, so my blumats have been running for nearly a month now. I am using a five gallon bucket as my upper res and a 35 gallon tote as my lower res.
To control the pump in the lower res I bought a Aquarium Pool Water Level Control Plastic Float Switch on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FDT02Q?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00
There was a review on the float valve that recommended using a Solid State Module Relay, also available on Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009AQNXT0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00
I had a little DC power supply, a wall wart, that I used to supply power to the DC side of the relay.
It works great. As soon as the level in the five gallon bucket drops a little, the float switch throws the relay and the pump in the lower res starts pumping. The relay has a LED light that comes on when the power to the pump is on, so it is a visual indicator that reinforces the sound of the pump running.
I was able to take a week off for Thanksgiving and when I returned, the plants all looked nice and healthy. I am looking forward to being able to take a week off for Christmas without having to worry about my plants.
Thanks to everyone, especially SD for starting this thread and to Rives for being patient and answering the same questions over and over again.
Luckily, I ordered a couple of kits and some extra parts and 3mm and the flexible red 8MM hose when I was only about a third of the way through the thread, so my blumats have been running for nearly a month now. I am using a five gallon bucket as my upper res and a 35 gallon tote as my lower res.
To control the pump in the lower res I bought a Aquarium Pool Water Level Control Plastic Float Switch on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FDT02Q?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00
There was a review on the float valve that recommended using a Solid State Module Relay, also available on Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009AQNXT0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00
I had a little DC power supply, a wall wart, that I used to supply power to the DC side of the relay.
It works great. As soon as the level in the five gallon bucket drops a little, the float switch throws the relay and the pump in the lower res starts pumping. The relay has a LED light that comes on when the power to the pump is on, so it is a visual indicator that reinforces the sound of the pump running.
I was able to take a week off for Thanksgiving and when I returned, the plants all looked nice and healthy. I am looking forward to being able to take a week off for Christmas without having to worry about my plants.
Thanks to everyone, especially SD for starting this thread and to Rives for being patient and answering the same questions over and over again.
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Sforza, it sounds like you've got things whipped! Glad to hear that things are working out well for you.
Regarding the float switch, the way that you have it set up with a SSR handling the switching will give you the best service life that the switch can give. However, I have seen them fail even in that configuration - the reed switch built into the float switch has TINY contacts, and SSR's can fail. That is why I went with a vastly oversized return line from the upper rez to the lower, and just a timer to control the lift pump. The timer is set for "on" periods long enough to refill the worst case usage a few times a day and the excess volume simply overflows back to the bottom rez when the upper one gets full.
Your method gives more flexibility in the installation, with less plumbing, so perhaps that was more important in your particular installation. An overflow would still be a good idea if you don't have one and can make one work - a frequent mode of failure with a SSR is with the output "on". It would probably be a good idea to have a spare switch and relay just in case.....
Regarding the float switch, the way that you have it set up with a SSR handling the switching will give you the best service life that the switch can give. However, I have seen them fail even in that configuration - the reed switch built into the float switch has TINY contacts, and SSR's can fail. That is why I went with a vastly oversized return line from the upper rez to the lower, and just a timer to control the lift pump. The timer is set for "on" periods long enough to refill the worst case usage a few times a day and the excess volume simply overflows back to the bottom rez when the upper one gets full.
Your method gives more flexibility in the installation, with less plumbing, so perhaps that was more important in your particular installation. An overflow would still be a good idea if you don't have one and can make one work - a frequent mode of failure with a SSR is with the output "on". It would probably be a good idea to have a spare switch and relay just in case.....
As usual rives, good advice. I have already purchased the bulkhead fitting and the 3/4" hose for the overflow line. I also have an extra blumat through hull fitting that I will install for the feed line. I just have the coming in over the top of the bucket now, tapped down with gorilla glue duct tape. The bucket lid also put pressure on the feed line, keeping it from working its way free.
I do have shut off valves and quick disconnects on both of the feed lines coming out of the bucket, so I could pinch things off and make the modifications on the bucket, but since things are working so well now, I am a little reluctant to disturb the system and perhaps gets some air in the lines or cause some other problem. I am thinking of perhaps not making the needed changes until after I finish this run.
I do have a tee installed in the far end of the loop and from that tee I ran about ten feet of the soft silicone 8mm red hose to a shutoff valve. Coming out of that shutoff valve, I used about six inches of the hard black plastic from the Blumat kit, making it like a little watering wand. So I have a way to drain the lines and purge air from the system, if I decide to go ahead and make the changes before I go on vacation. I can also use this drain hose to water the pots where they are getting a little dry on top. I mainly do it because I get a kick out of hearing the pump kick on shortly after I open the valve and quit pumping shortly have I turn the watering valve off.
If the valve sticks on while I am out of town, I am pretty sure that most if not all of the water would be caught in the lining that I put under the plants, so it would not be a disaster, although if the switch failed in the off mode, the plants would probably be dead when I got back.
By the way, timers can fail too, can't they? I haven't had a timer fail in a while, but back in the day when I used cheap mechanical timers with 1000 watt magnetic ballasts, I seem to remember frying a couple timers.
I do have shut off valves and quick disconnects on both of the feed lines coming out of the bucket, so I could pinch things off and make the modifications on the bucket, but since things are working so well now, I am a little reluctant to disturb the system and perhaps gets some air in the lines or cause some other problem. I am thinking of perhaps not making the needed changes until after I finish this run.
I do have a tee installed in the far end of the loop and from that tee I ran about ten feet of the soft silicone 8mm red hose to a shutoff valve. Coming out of that shutoff valve, I used about six inches of the hard black plastic from the Blumat kit, making it like a little watering wand. So I have a way to drain the lines and purge air from the system, if I decide to go ahead and make the changes before I go on vacation. I can also use this drain hose to water the pots where they are getting a little dry on top. I mainly do it because I get a kick out of hearing the pump kick on shortly after I open the valve and quit pumping shortly have I turn the watering valve off.
If the valve sticks on while I am out of town, I am pretty sure that most if not all of the water would be caught in the lining that I put under the plants, so it would not be a disaster, although if the switch failed in the off mode, the plants would probably be dead when I got back.
By the way, timers can fail too, can't they? I haven't had a timer fail in a while, but back in the day when I used cheap mechanical timers with 1000 watt magnetic ballasts, I seem to remember frying a couple timers.
Nice to hear that they're working well, sforza. Like you, I'm loathe to mess with it when it's working well & there are plants in the way. I make changes only between rounds except in the case of failure. You do want the current requirements of the relay coil to be well below the rating of the float sw for long life. For future reference, using a more complex circuit & 2 float sws at different heights you can create a pull in lock in circuit that will reduce pump cycling.
Using tap water & organic soil, I just use a float valve in the bucket. I have a throttle valve on the feed line to increase the time to overflow should that go wrong.
Using tap water & organic soil, I just use a float valve in the bucket. I have a throttle valve on the feed line to increase the time to overflow should that go wrong.
Yes, timers can also fail. Running a 1kw light on a plug-in timer is guaranteed to make it fail, though! If you stay well within the specifications, I've had good luck with the better-quality digital timers, but I wouldn't run an HID ballast on one. For me personally, I'd rather lose a crop than flood the house. I did that once, 30+ years ago, when we had a baby-sitter at the house and a pressure line blew off on my flood & drain system in the attic. Pretty hard to explain to the grandmother-aged lady why water started dripping through the dining room ceiling in the middle of a beautiful day......
If I understand Sforza's post correctly, he is only using the float switch for pilot duty and is using a sold-state relay to actually switch the load. Those little reed-switch magnetic float switches won't handle any load to speak of.
Thank you both for your helpful suggestions.
I am using a relay with the switch. I posted the link to the switch and the relay above. I would like to reduce pump cycling.
That would reduce the stress on the switch and the pump. The pump does not cycle too much now. It will run for 10 seconds or so and then not run for about an hour. I put a tee into the line running from the lower res to the upper res down near the pump. I run a short section of hose into the lower res, so that when the pump is filling the upper res, there is also a water stream that is stirring p the lower res.
I originally wanted to set up my system with two level switches so that the pump would run less often but for a longer time each time it ran, but I have not been able to figure out exactly how to do that.
I am really bad at figuring out electric circuits. I have seen some drawings on the web for sump pumps and bilge pumps that use two float switches and they use the same basic principles as keeping an upper res topped off, but the schematics are not clear enough for me to understand. Also they show a single battery as the power source for both the relay(s) and the pump, while I am using a DC power supply to power the relay and regular AC to run my pump.
There is single float switch with two floats, the lower one normally on and the upper one normally off on Amazon that looks promising, but there are no instructions and the the helpful information provided by the customers on how to wire it up is just a little beyond my ken.
Apparently you have to wire the relay so that when the lower float drops, it starts the pump, but when the lower float rises, it does not stop the pump because the relay is "latched" and the relay stays energized until the upper float rises, which completes the circuit and shorts out the relay thus turning the pump off.
The concept is easy enough, but exactly how the wires are supposed to be attached escapes me. There is mention of using a second relay in order to accomplish the latch of the relay, but I am having trouble figuring that out.
This is the link to the dual float that I am talking about on Amazon.
To get around my inability to figure out how to wire in two float switches, I was thinking that I could add in a timer so that the pump, switch, and relay would only be powered up for ten minutes or so a couple times a day. That would reduce pump cycling and keep the upper res pretty full. Once I get the overflow hose installed, I could use just the timer and dispense with the float switch.
Having a timer and a float switch violates the cardinal rule to Keep It Simple Stupid, but I am known to violate a rule or two now and again.
this is one of the threads i looked at when i was having the same set of problems you are having. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=92963 for what you are doing you will only need one relay. you should be able to set up what you need for less than $50 between what you have to order on the web and a trip to home depot.
listen to rives! put an overflow in your system! i use the plastic float switches and on very rare occasions they DO stick. a little over engineering and a small dose of paranoia is a good thing if you don't want to come home to water on the floor and/or a dead crop.
You've got it pretty well covered. If you decide to go this way, the following circuit will do what you want. I would highly recommend the overflow/timer route, though - it is much simpler. If you want to do this, you will need another float switch installed at whatever level you want the pump to turn on. You will also need a double-pole electromechanical relay for the "holding" circuit.
Remember when looking at a schematic that the contacts are always shown in the "at rest" position, without any other forces working on them.
1) Set up both of the float switches so that they are normally closed (NC, the contacts open as the float rises).
2) When the rez is full, both switches are open.
3) As the water drops away from the upper float switch, it closes and power is applied to one side of the downstream contacts and can go no further because they are both open.
4) As the water drops past the lower float switch, it closes and applies power to relay R1's coil. This causes the R1 contacts to close, giving a parallel route for the power to get to R1's coil. The other set of R1 contacts on the 120vac circuit close at the same time and apply power to the pump.
5) As the water flows into the rez, the lower float switch's float is lifted up and opens the switch. R1 stays engaged and the pump continues to run because the power is now flowing through the "holding contact" on R1.
6) The water continues to flow in until it lifts the float on the upper switch, breaking the power flow to R1's coil and allowing the relay to open and shut off the pump.
7) Repeat.
Alternately, you can use a single set of contacts on R1 and parallel the input side of the SSR with the R1 coil so that they are driven together, but I drew it this way for clarity.
Yes, you are right. I have never seen rives give bad advice. While reading this thread I have wondered why other posters don't just follow his sound advice so I guess I should apply the same logic to myself.
I have the parts. I will go ahead and pinch off both ends of the feed line, empty the upper res bucket, and install the bulkhead fitting I have and attach the hose to it and run that back down to my lower res. That way, the worst that can happen is that the water will recirculate over and over. I am going out of town for Christmas and if I don't install the overflow line, I would be uneasy wondering if there was a problem at home with the system.
Thanks for the explanation rives. Even though I will go the timer and overflow line route, knowing how to set up the two float just sets my mind at ease, since it was bugging me trying to figure out how to do it.
I installed the overflow hose in the top of the upper bucket. As long as I had the bucket disconnected I also tweaked some things that I was putting off, such as installing another through hull connection for my fill line instead of going over the top of the bucket, and putting a perforated metal cage around the float switch so that it is not as sensitive to waves in the bucket. I found my spare digital timer and the battery is still good in it, so as soon as I can remember or figure out how to set the timing, I will run the both the pump and the relay power through the timer, to cut down on the cycling, hopefully putting less stress and wear and tear on both the pump and the switch.
"Wet and Dry" cycles
"Wet and Dry" cycles
Wet and dry cycles is about the DUMBEST concept (well, close anyway
) in growing.
IMO, "Wet and Dry" rates alongside nonsense such as hanging plants upside down so "the good stuff,lol can flow to the buds!!!
This is why hydro systems have historically outperformed traditional "dirt" systems. Hydro provides a constant moisture level. Old school dirt guys were letting their soil dry out, and then soaking it.
Not good.
The reason B/Ms work SO WELL is they keep a constant, optimal moisture content not possible with traditional watering methodologies, unless you can spend 24hrs. a day with an eyedropper.
And even then, I think the B/M will do a better job! LOL!
Keep on drippin!
Sunny
"Wet and Dry" cycles
Wet and dry cycles is about the DUMBEST concept (well, close anyway
) in growing.IMO, "Wet and Dry" rates alongside nonsense such as hanging plants upside down so "the good stuff,lol can flow to the buds!!!
This is why hydro systems have historically outperformed traditional "dirt" systems. Hydro provides a constant moisture level. Old school dirt guys were letting their soil dry out, and then soaking it.
Not good.
The reason B/Ms work SO WELL is they keep a constant, optimal moisture content not possible with traditional watering methodologies, unless you can spend 24hrs. a day with an eyedropper.
And even then, I think the B/M will do a better job! LOL!
Keep on drippin!
Sunny
Wet and dry cycles is about the DUMBEST concept (well, close anyway
IMO, "Wet and Dry" rates alongside nonsense such as hanging plants upside down so "the good stuff,lol can flow to the buds!!!
This is why hydro systems have historically outperformed traditional "dirt" systems. Hydro provides a constant moisture level. Old school dirt guys were letting their soil dry out, and then soaking it.
Not good.
The reason B/Ms work SO WELL is they keep a constant, optimal moisture content not possible with traditional watering methodologies, unless you can spend 24hrs. a day with an eyedropper.
And even then, I think the B/M will do a better job! LOL!
Keep on drippin!
Sunny
You're absolutely correct. The other thing about blumats is that they can be used w/ rich yet very open fast draining soil mixes that would otherwise be impractical w/o near constant attention. The two together are absolute dynamite, not to mention ridiculously care free. Put it all together, dial in the blumats, step back out of the way. No feeding schedule, no bottles, no mixing.
Many thanks for this thread & also to Eighths-n-Aces for helping me get dialed in.
I have posted a copy of the instructions that Sustainable Village sent along with my Blumat order in the hopes that the information might help people who are thinking about ordering Blumats, since the instructions answer questions that are often asked in this thread and it is rather intimidating wading through 286 pages of posts to find answers.
It has been mentioned before, but the top of the instructions discuss how to use a disposable pipette to squirt a little water at the inner part of top of the white plastic cap while the blumat top is underwater. I had soaked the sensors for a few hours and could not see any air, but when I followed the directions and used the pipette as directed, there were quite a few air bubbles that were forced out of the top of the carrot.
I believe it was rrog was the first person to mention using a syringe for this purpose and I think he made a follow up post showing a picture of a disposable pipette and telling people how to use it to get the air out of the top of the sensors, so thanks to rrog for making that discovery and sharing it with not only this forum but apparently he told the folks at Sustainable Village too and they have passed along the information and they include a disposable pipette when you buy a kit from them. Even though the pipettes are cheap and disposable, you can reuse the same pipette over and over as long as you rinse them out after using them.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=5903641&postcount=3191
It has been mentioned before, but the top of the instructions discuss how to use a disposable pipette to squirt a little water at the inner part of top of the white plastic cap while the blumat top is underwater. I had soaked the sensors for a few hours and could not see any air, but when I followed the directions and used the pipette as directed, there were quite a few air bubbles that were forced out of the top of the carrot.
I believe it was rrog was the first person to mention using a syringe for this purpose and I think he made a follow up post showing a picture of a disposable pipette and telling people how to use it to get the air out of the top of the sensors, so thanks to rrog for making that discovery and sharing it with not only this forum but apparently he told the folks at Sustainable Village too and they have passed along the information and they include a disposable pipette when you buy a kit from them. Even though the pipettes are cheap and disposable, you can reuse the same pipette over and over as long as you rinse them out after using them.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=5903641&postcount=3191
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I hold the top underwater downside up and tap it against the ceramic piece before assembling it underwater.
Do you see lots of air bubbles come out when you do that? I sure see a lot more air bubbles coming out of the top when I use the pipette than I thought was possible.
my declaration for the new year is to finally set mine up ..I have had 2 patio kits for many years sitting...going to put them in the greenhouse with raised reservoir.....yeehaw..you guys have done all the trial and error for me...
