Blumat auto watering

[BigGreen]

Thanks found them and ordered them from planet earth hydro
Thanks again

 

[rrog]

Question that I haven't found an answer for: The little distributors have a screw. Any idea what happens when you adjust it? Also, some of these distributors drip like in the video, while others simply have the water run down the stem. Hard to calculate when there's no distinct drip.

I have tilted these non-drippers so as to encourage a drip, and while that seems to help, they definitely still want to run down the side and not drip.

Thanks

Anyone have any thoughts on these distributors?

 

[rives]

Anyone have any thoughts on these distributors?

When I was using them, I ran across some documentation that suggested leaving the screw as delivered - that is, seated. The castellated portions of the base provide for keeping the flow consistent, and I found that the only thing that required removing the screw was to clean the device. The Blumat support stakes are the right size for the drippers to snap into, and hold them sideways so that they drip straight down.

 

[rrog]

Hmmm. Well' I'll take apart and re-screw the offending distributors. Make sure the screws are seated properly. I'm using the BM stakes, which work great IMO. I've even tipped them so as to encourage a drip, but they still run the water back to the base and it runs down the stake. Almost like the water is running uphill.

Thanks as always for your great insights, rives.

 

[rives]

Rrog, are you running straight water or do you amend it with something? I found that even running a weak level of CalMag caused the drippers to quickly build up a strange, mucous-like substance that plugged them up. The screw is easily cross-threaded, so use caution when re-installing them.

Happy to help!

 

[rrog]

Thanks.

Running straight well water through the BM pressure reducer. Been running about three days.

I'll watch out with the threads.

 

[sunnydog]

Never been a fan of the slave drippers.....

 

[rrog]

They seem to be working now after some farting around. Sunny, what size containers are you using with one dripper? I have 7 (liquid) gal pails and thought the second drip site would almost be necessary.

 

[sunnydog]

They seem to be working now after some farting around. Sunny, what size containers are you using with one dripper? I have 7 (liquid) gal pails and thought the second drip site would almost be necessary.

Using a 7 I would probably use two B/M units.
Or try the maxi ones. Never used them, but looks like it would work great.

I mostly use 3s +5s, and as small as little 5"x5" (8 to a tray) square pots.

I may end up using a limited amount of slaves again to keep cuts watered,+ I have a ton of them!

 

[rrog]

I am using 1 maxi carrot per 7 gallon pail. With 2 distributors. I've been keeping an eye on them. So far, so good. I have two water sensors near the bottoms of the pails so if they start a runoff, the water supply shuts off immediately.

 

[Marlo]

question...

question...

Wsup all you blumat vet's

I have my 20 gallon rez about 5ft above the blumats. 2 lines coming out of the rez... (8mm)

Should I feed each line to opposite sides of the room to make a loop? Will I still need a bleed valve?


Thanks in advance...

 

[rives]

Yes, and yes.

 

[Herborizer]

In my opinion, using 1/2 inch flexible tubing from your res is the best. That's what I do. Then I make a loop of the 1/2 on my flood table. Those little connectors poked into various places on the loop with the 3mm tubing into those connectors. Then into the carrots.

Adjust the dials so that the top of the coco looks mostly wet. I shoot for almost 1% runnoff. Once everything is in the sweet spot I probably adjust my dials about once per week. Takes like 5 seconds a plant. Sometimes I go weeks without a single adjustment.

After I refill my 30 gal res, I always open the dials fully to let any possible gunk to flow out. I do this for about 1 minute. Then I dial them back and have them drip at something like once every 2 seconds. About 4-6 hours later I come back and check them. Dial them back a little for the 1% runoff.

Between rounds I fill my 30 gal res with plain water and put in a cup of bleach. I let that run with my airstones for about 30 minutes. Then I open my valve and let it all run out of my bluemat system. I take the carrots off for this part, but leave everything else. I do this to just nuke everything out of the lines.

Hope my detail above helps someone.

 

[wisco61]

Started another round with the blumats and its a little different. This one is a stadium with 2 levels of plants so I will get to see how they work in that application. I'm sure they will rock as always.

I'm still using my always full upper res setup and its still doing awesome. I also discovered a use for my aerocloner!

I'm running Jack's Pro Hydro + Calcnit this round. It dissolves so well I don't think I will have any issues.

I was kind of dreading the installation of this latest round, but I am glad I did it. There is just a certain feeling of contentment that washes over a person knowing that some beautiful plants in the basement are just drip, drip, dripping to fat buds.

I need to buy more soon. The plan calls for 48, I can't wait.

 

[rrog]

What a sweet setup!

 

[familystone]

Will all of the negativity about DE I decided to email Blumat. They seem to think there should be no prob so I guess I'll be the guinea pig. Anyway, just thought I'd let you all know.

Results:

In only using DE I found the regular Blumats required almost daily adjusting. The reason for this, I think, is because the blumats weren't big enough for the containers.

The blumats would have problems dripping constantly or not at all due to the first 1.5" or so of DE drying out due to all the air movement in the environment. However, just under that dry top layer the DE would Still contain a large ammount of water.

I believe that if I had purchased the larger model that I wouldnt have had this problem.

The medium itself is great. I had extremely vigorous root growth (similar tho that of hydro), the shoots were stronger. The nutes I'm using are organic and implement molasses of which I added additional to make up for lower P.

Instead of purchasing new larger mats, I have decided to mix some coir in hopefully keep the top layer more moist and prevent the blumats from fowling up.

 

[supermanlives]

great reading guys. learning lots from yall. still have my 2 patio kits sitting on shelf.i am glad i didnt set them up long ago. this way i can learn from yalls mistakes and soak in your wisdom. K+

 

[rrog]

I'm away for a few days and feel pretty good about having the BMs working while I'm gone. And if there's an issue the sensors will shut the water off immediately until I return

 

[LeeROI]

SYL, I don't really understand all of the permutations of your post, but the volume of water doesn't impact pressure - elevation does. You get .43 psi per foot of elevation from the water surface to the discharge point on a gravity-fed system. If you have a 5000 gallon tank with 1 foot of elevation above the discharge point, you will have the same pressure as a 5 gallon bucket with 1 foot of elevation over the discharge. Counter-intuitive, but true nonetheless.

I've been pondering this post for a while and I think I grasp the concept now.
Here is a good example to figure the difference in pressure between a full reservoir and an almost empty one: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080824163017AA6ZEQM

Summary:
• When the tank is full (25’+6.6’=31.6’) how much static pressure will I have at the bottom of the tower?
• When the tank is near empty (25’) how much static pressure will I have at the bottom tower?

Answer:

First:
1cuft (of water) = 6.24 Imperial Gallons = 7.48 USA Gallons
also 1cuft (of water) weighs 62.4lb

Water pressure may be expressed as Head of Water (in feet or other units)
OR as Pressure of Water (in lb/sqin or other units)

To convert from one to the other
Pressure of Water (lb/sqin) = Head of Water (ft)*0.434

Head of water (ft) = Pressure of Water (lb/sqin)*2.31

When the tank is full the Head of Water at ground level will be
31.6 ft = 13.4lb/sqin

When the tank is almost empty the Head of Water at ground level will be 25 ft = 10.85lb/sqin

To understand this consider a column of water 25ft in height measuring 1ft square in section. Since each cubic foot of that 25ft of height weighs 62.4 pounds there is a pressure on the ground of
25*1*1*62.4 = 1560 pounds per square foot which is
1560/144 = 10.83 pounds per square inch.

Edit: in rives example, consider the 5000 gallon tank to be a big flood table with side walls the same height as the five gallon bucket.

 

[Marlo]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuccccccck

Fuuuuuuuuuuuccccccck

Just realized all of my blumats have crapped out. Done. Finito. I'm not exactly sure how, but every last one of em are broken.


I was setting everything back up tonite. Had all the plumbing done, and the blumats installed....filled the rez and went to start adjusting the BM's when I quickly noticed every single one was shooting water full blast. I turned the tops til they were completely closed, and the water kept comin.

After about 5 mins and a few gallons of water, I realized this shit wasn't gonna happen. So I shut off the rez and started looking at my BM's. When I opened one of them, I noticed there is a small rubber piece in the cap under the plastic, behind the 3 lil holes. This lil rubber piece was torn and broken....in all of my blumats. With this piece broken, it is no longer air tite, and the blumat won't pinch the feed line.

Only causes of this I can think of, is maybe going 1 year between uses. Or maybe they didn't like the water/bleach solution I used to clean them before I installed em again. Other than that, they've just been sitting in a box.

Not too happy about this. There was a store not too far away that had blumats in stock a long time ago. Gonna see if they still carry em.