Help with constant drip. DTW octabubblers

[queequeg152]

Ya I have a feeling that it's more daunting in thought than reality. Another problem for me though is I am seriously lacking in space so fitting a proper sized tank in would be challenging. I have another room that's even bigger that I'll be setting up next so having 2 tanks plus pumps and pressure switches would fill up my little space quickly. That or have to set up a dual solenoid system that let me run 2 rooms off one pump and accumulater with 2 separate reservoirs. It's possible as I have thought about it a lot to save the money on pumps but I just really like the KISS method and having 4 solenoids working to open lines to each room plus accumulator tanks and pressure switches is just getting to be a little much.

This system seems to be working pretty good now, I might add some pressure compensating drippers to each line to get more even flow to each plant, once that's dialed I think it will be about as simple and good as it gets for me.

i know what you are saying regarding space, but again remember that the size of the tank is strictly dictated by the minimum duty cycle of the pump.

in other words, if the manufacturer says its ok to turn the pump off for only 1 minute before starting it up again... then you only need to provide the accumulation necessary to provide the draw down volume that would keep your system running for 1 minute or so.

is it ideal to cycle the pump that much? probably not, but if you have very little space, then just do it... you might wear the pump out faster, but better overall performance would be worth it imho.

also keep in mind that these tanks need not be sitting on the ground... you can strap them to a wall if you like, and simply run flex hose into a union mounted on the tank.

the union would allow you to quickly decouple the tank and service it when ever you need. here is an example of a wall mounting strap for a smaller tank.

http://www.faucetdepot.com/faucetde...81S4G1vkUMha6eP8uW6eBR4dEZ5-EHhFPUaApM48P8HAQ


regarding solenoids being too compliated... man trust me they are not complicated at all.

if you go with lawn irrigation solenoids like i use... all you need is a lawn sprinkler controller with a built in 24vac transformer.

the transformer will control the solenoids, and the timer will control what solenoids open and for how long they will be open for.

the irrigation controller i got was from ebay. like 40 bucks i think. it works perfectly fine for this task. the ONLY problems i have had were/are related to the threads leaking on the cheap solenoids i bought.

i ended up having to rewrap them with triple thick teflon tape AND PTFE pipe thread sealant ontop of the teflon tape. ever since i did that, they stopped dripping. my shit is all out side though so drips dont even matter that much tbh, but the fertilizer solution was starting to rust the steel frame that i have my equipment mounted to.

 

[OldPhart]

Just an additional thought, you can get by with a very small pressure tank, and no pressure switch at all with a little tuning, and not have to worry about short cycling the pump, because it runs all the time a valve is open. Most sprinkler controllers have an output for a pump start relay, you connect a relay to that point on the controller to turn the pump on when a zone is activated. This would require the setup of: res > Pump > checkvalve > tank > solonoid valve > distro system. To control the pressure, you would have to put a bypass going from before the pump, to after the pump, with a valve to control how much you let bypass and still maintain the desired pressure. I have ran quite large irrigation systems, with a 2 gallon tank. You are only using the tank to handle surges of when the valve opens and the pump comes on. If you are dealing with higher flow systems, and using a pump that can handle high head pressures, check out the cycle stop valves. http://www.cyclestopvalves.com/ I have used these with 20 gallon/minute sprinkler systems with a 2 gallon tank.

 

[queequeg152]

that is an interesting configuration... but you need to remember that almost all of these diaphragm pumps have pressure switches internal to the construction.

most if not all are adjustable to what ever the pump can handle, and most if not all have a set dead band of like 5-15 psi that is not adjustable.

your configuration would work for an extreemly over sized pump and extreemly under sized accumulator... but barring the need for either the over sized pump, or the under sized accumulator i cant see it making sense.

in other words... if you had the over sized pump, but adequately sized accumulator it would not make sense... and if you had a adequately sized pump and under sized accumulator it would not make sense either.

also, when using solenoids, its not necessary to use a check valve before or after the pump.

there are certain makes of solenoid valves that will not open when there is no pressure behind them, or when the pressure ahead of the solenoid is higher than the pressure behind them... these are called shitty solenoids( pilot or indirect acting solenoid).

but this only becomes an issue when your irrigation controller has no pump/master relay with the built in delay feature... most do however.

i use shitty solenoids without issues becasue of the delay feature. also the pressure maintained inside the distribution system is low, less than 10 psi. in OP's case with the octo bubblers the pressure in the distribution system would be 0 or nearly 0psi so it would not be an issue unless he upgraded to pressure regulated emitters like mine.

when you dont have the delay feature and you have shitty solenoids, you will hear the solenoid chatter or hum for a second before it opens fully as the pump develops pressure. its probably bad for the life of the solenoid... but other than that they seem to work fine, and they are so cheap it just does not matter if they wear out faster than usual.

my old roommate from college had a potato cannon with this issue. a normal solenoid you could install either direction... but one of his shitty solenoids was reversed and would not operate properly. mind you this was in excess of 150psi.

 

[sheik_yerbouti]

i know what you are saying regarding space, but again remember that the size of the tank is strictly dictated by the minimum duty cycle of the pump.

in other words, if the manufacturer says its ok to turn the pump off for only 1 minute before starting it up again... then you only need to provide the accumulation necessary to provide the draw down volume that would keep your system running for 1 minute or so.

is it ideal to cycle the pump that much? probably not, but if you have very little space, then just do it... you might wear the pump out faster, but better overall performance would be worth it imho.

also keep in mind that these tanks need not be sitting on the ground... you can strap them to a wall if you like, and simply run flex hose into a union mounted on the tank.

the union would allow you to quickly decouple the tank and service it when ever you need. here is an example of a wall mounting strap for a smaller tank.

http://www.faucetdepot.com/faucetde...81S4G1vkUMha6eP8uW6eBR4dEZ5-EHhFPUaApM48P8HAQ


regarding solenoids being too compliated... man trust me they are not complicated at all.

if you go with lawn irrigation solenoids like i use... all you need is a lawn sprinkler controller with a built in 24vac transformer.

the transformer will control the solenoids, and the timer will control what solenoids open and for how long they will be open for.

the irrigation controller i got was from ebay. like 40 bucks i think. it works perfectly fine for this task. the ONLY problems i have had were/are related to the threads leaking on the cheap solenoids i bought.

i ended up having to rewrap them with triple thick teflon tape AND PTFE pipe thread sealant ontop of the teflon tape. ever since i did that, they stopped dripping. my shit is all out side though so drips dont even matter that much tbh, but the fertilizer solution was starting to rust the steel frame that i have my equipment mounted to.

If you could see my work space you'd understand why I don't have much room for a tank system. It's seriously cramped, barely 6ft ceilings with cross bracing to bang your head on all the time. On the wall space about the pump is my electrical panel and on the adjacent wall is where I mount all my ballasts. I'm sure if I got really creative I could make it work but trust me when I say I really don't have much space to work with. I'm sure that an accumulator tank system might be a little better but now that I have the constant drip thing figured out I can't really see a way to have a more simple and effective system with minimal parts to fail. It's only the pump that could fail in my system and I like that. I hand watered for 5 years because of my fear of losing a crop to a mechanical or system failure so the less things to go wrong just makes me feel more at ease.

And ya regarding solenoids it's not that I think they are complicated its just adding more pieces to a system which increases the chances of failure. I'm sure they are pretty trustworthy but if I can have a system that works and minimalizes the probability of failure than that's the system for me