Ok, been pretty busy with other stuff, but I have most of the components I need now. Still waiting on the bulk of the John Guest fittings and haven't yet purchased all the parts I plan to obtain from the local hardware store. I had some time to shoot a few pics of what I have so far and just wanted to post em as promised- so here goes...
This is an accurate digital tire pressure gauge that measures up to 150psi and will help me initially set the accumulator tank's air bladder pressure. Also, shown is the smart trickle charger I'll use to keep the 12v battery charged that will power the whole system until I switch to a 20w solar panel eventually. (Yes- HPA is a very energy efficient way to grow, people worried about their carbon footprint should be thrilled-lol)
Here is the 1 micron inline filter that specifically does not have the small red bleeder valve typical on these types of filters (in case I put it on the inlet side of the pump the valve might have drawn in air under the vacuum conditions). I also got a 1 micron filter bag shown on the right like Atomizer recommended, as it was only a few dollars and I might go that route too depending on how the inline filter seems to work.
Some of the John Guest fittings, valves and adaptors and 1/4" tubing that have arrived so far- and a nice sized glycerine filled pressure gauge that reads up to 150 psi. I chose the black JG tubing after reading it's the only one that has uv stabilizers for direct sunlight applications, although I think I will wrap it with insulation anyway.
The $13 stainless steel Pressure relief valve from ebay. Hope it performs well enough. The maximal setting is 150 psi and I will probably set it fairly close to it's limits (I'm thinking 150 actually as I will probably set my pump cut out pressure to 130-140psi). This thing should only ever be needed in a pressure switch failure situation to prevent a catastrophic explosion of the accumulator tank.
This is the $26 Dwyer pressure switch- I hope it's good considering the cheaper price- but I wanted to use a different one than Cavadge and tree farmer because the $80 Square-D one they both used reportedly had issues triggering when the system pressure fluctuated as the solenoids fired.
These are the 8 stainless steel STC solenoids I changed my mind and got instead of the original ones I was considering- they are very heavy and seem bulletproof. The electronic portion can easily be detached and replaced for $10 if it ever wears out (the valves themselves seem like they will last a lifetime).
This is the ATC-422 flip flop timer. Looks pretty cool eh? I was surprised the dials spin smoothly and don't click in between settings, it makes me think I can make very slight adjustments to the resolution of 1/10 of a second. On the side of the unit (not shown) are some screws that adjust the intervals as indicated in the tiny windows next to the dials. It came from the factory set on 10 seconds, but I will be setting the top (ON timing) dial to 1 second which the dial will then adjust anywhere from 1/10th- up to 100% of that single second. The bottom dial will adjust the pause duration timing and I will set it to 10 minutes and then that dial will adjust the pause between ON cycles in fractions of 10 minutes. The piece on the right is the octal base for wiring the timer in.
Here's the 150psi - 10.3 gallon expansion tank I'll be using as my accumulator. The water inlet/outlet is located on the bottom and can be plumbed in through the hole in the metal ring base. On top you can see the offset air valve for adjusting the bladder pressure, and I am still not sure what the center threaded hole is for, but I can only guess it's to mount a pressure gauge. The instructions had no mention of it, and when I called customer service the lady was unknowledgeable and sounded annoyed that I asked something she didn't know the answer to. I honestly do not think she knew anything about their products at all as she wasn't sure what an "expansion tank" even was-
Here are 2 of the Biocontrols acetyl inpingement style mist nozzles (0.016 orifice rated <0.04 oz. per second @ 80-100psi). Note the little plastic pin on top that seems like it could bend or break off quite easily- I'll have to be careful when handling it. It's that pin that is the "inpingement" part- it means the water is blasted into the pin tip and that helps break apart the stream into a finer mist. tree farmer wrote these are some of the better nozzles he used and he's tried many different types apparently. He also mentioned that about 1 out of 10 of them seem to be defective so I purchased a couple extras. If you look closely, there is a piece in the threaded side of the nozzles that looks like it might serve to swirl the water as it enters the nozzle body, I was intrigued by it and wondered how it might help the mist production.
Well, I still need to purchase the root chamber and get to working on that as well as putting together some sort of housing and mounting configuration for all these plumbing and control system parts. I'll be honest that I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the variables I'm trying to take into account in the design phase. I really want to make sure stuff is sheltered from the elements and also insulated from the heat. I guess once I start on it and take it in bite size chunks it really won't be such a big deal. If I could just fully commit to a design, the actual work would probably only be a day or two...
any constructive criticism would be good
