Might buy Atomix System from friend

Atomizer

Well-Known Member
Greed.. they shot themselves in the foot by charging £3 grand for £700 worth of hardware. £400 of that was in the compressor which they bought in, same story for the nozzles, timer and solenoids. The only part they made from scratch was the chamber.
 

hammer21

Well-Known Member
After reading there patent the only thing there patent is for is the use of a aa nozzle for agriculture applications they did not invent some magical mystical nozzle everything is just off the shelf items. Also I would have to believe that the postings from the UK using this is actually them promoting the product look at the dates pure scammers. Also look at all the patents that they hold from one extreme to the other they are patent whores taking someone else's ideas and using the device for another purpose other than what was defind in the original patent. Hoping someday someone purchase that patent for that exact application.
 

hammer21

Well-Known Member
Also the reason they wanted to charge so much is a good business plan is to make at least 3 times the cost of manufacturing on said item. They only purchased enough for a few systems and had to purchase parts at retail cost.
 

jamesvagabond

Well-Known Member
aah, and so the truth unfolds haha. I just want to know who the manufacturer of the nozzles were if they aren't their own invention so I can see some specs. Their 3k system would fit only one of my plants by my design so I am not really interested in buying them (unless it was 400 on CL), just want the data. The patent helped with communicating some of the more detailed principles of AA but I agree with you Hammer, I am under the belief that just about anyone who patents anything is just a bastard trying to profit off of someone else's ideas who were too noble to proprietarize it. I like the idea of anti-patents.

I wish I had a bored friend with a full machine shop.
 

Atomizer

Well-Known Member
They only purchased enough for a few systems and had to purchase parts at retail cost.
There`s a lot of conjecture there ;)
I guess the atomix guys just stuck a pin in an AA nozzle catalogue and got lucky? At $400 a pair, making the wrong choice could get expensive.
 

jamesvagabond

Well-Known Member
There`s a lot of conjecture there ;)
I guess the atomix guys just stuck a pin in an AA nozzle catalogue and got lucky? At $400 a pair, making the wrong choice could get expensive.
AAAAH which is exactly why I haven't made any choices on nozzles yet!!! It is driving me crazy, I want to get some plants going but I only have equip for low pressure aero (hydro) but I don't want to get comfortable with that setup and not pursue TAG. I am thinking that I may bite the bullet and try a bete xaad nozzle, buy one at first and use it for a large veg chamber.

I am going to give IBC totes as a single plant size chamber. A little much but I can find them way cheaper than I could build to the same effect (sealed, food grade, solid, and easy to insulate. I am just itching to get this done and saving up for a baller true aero system on cooks pay rate is getting old. May be time to fill the lag with some LPA (tail tucks between legs). I wonder if BETE has a return policy, hopefully one that is a little over 90 days maybe?
 

jamesvagabond

Well-Known Member
I get you, it's a shame it's like that though. This is very expensive equipment and it's all based on the hope and prayer that the manufacturers 1) made them properly 2) caught the defective ones 3) the technical claims are based on real world applications. There should be some sort of buyer protection when it comes to equipment.
 

indrhrvest

New Member
There`s a lot of conjecture there ;)
It costs a lot of money to develop a marketable system. I'd imagine they were trying to recoup the investment on thier tooling and marked the prices up because of the low volume. They probably simply ran out of money. They got caught in the vicsious cycle of having to raise pricing, to stay afloat, but then the higher pricing created less interest. You have to have the capital reserves to get into a business like this.
 

Atomizer

Well-Known Member
What tooling? They could order most of the hardware after the customer has paid them. Its done all the time these days..ever ordered something that was supposedly in stock at the time and then found it wasnt? Saves them buying stock to have it sitting on the shelf.
 

indrhrvest

New Member
What tooling?
Thier chamber wasn't off the shelf. It also looks like it was an injection molded part, which carries a much higher tooling cost than thermoforming or rotational molding. If it was injection molded tooling, they could have easily had $10K-$15K wrapped up in tooling alone. Not counting whatever prototyping they did.

 

Atomizer

Well-Known Member
Thats the V2, the original chamber that went with the £3 grand system consisted of a pond liner attached to a box frame with perspex panels on the outside. The only tooling you need for that is a saw, a drill and a screwdriver ;)

atomix chamber construction.jpg early atomix.jpg
 

indrhrvest

New Member
Thats the V2, the original chamber that went with the £3 grand system consisted of a pond liner attached to a box frame with perspex panels on the outside. The only tooling you need for that is a saw, a drill and a screwdriver ;)
Then the must have been the prototype, or at least a less refined product. They must have had the higher price so they could afford the tooling on V2/
 

Atomizer

Well-Known Member
The V2 was a hybrid AA/dwc system so they couldnt use the same chamber (aka, the Pro 9) due to the water weight. It only had one nozzle which was mounted near the top, so they shaved a few hundred off their costs there. The Pro 9 was freestanding, the V2 didnt even come with a stand which would`ve been handy for draining. 3 grand and you have to put it up on bricks? lol
The top didnt come off so cleaning it was prolly a nightmare too. You dont see many dwc buckets with the lid welded on
 

indrhrvest

New Member
The V2 was a hybrid AA/dwc system so they couldnt use the same chamber (aka, the Pro 9) due to the water weight. It only had one nozzle which was mounted near the top, so they shaved a few hundred off their costs there. The Pro 9 was freestanding, the V2 didnt even come with a stand which would`ve been handy for draining. 3 grand and you have to put it up on bricks? lol
The top didnt come off so cleaning it was prolly a nightmare too. You dont see many dwc buckets with the lid welded on
Well obviously they didn't spend enough time refining thier product. There's a reason we are now on our third generation design, have done a dozen tests and still haven't started retailing yet. We're still working out design bugs, but right now, based on the commercial HPA systems out there, we're killing them in terms of size and pricing. We're lukcy to be funded well enough to conduct proper R&D.
 

Atomizer

Well-Known Member
The commercial hpa systems are all pretty much of the same basic format, your approach isnt radically different to agrihouses apart from the packaging. It uses high pressure pumps, a gazillion nozzles and sports a silly price tag, justifiable or not. AH has always offered accumulators albeit as optional extras.
The atomix was at least genuinely different to the rest and not just yet another reincarnation of the same old same old.
 

indrhrvest

New Member
The atomix was at least genuinely different to the rest and not just yet another reincarnation of the same old same old.
This is true, but sometimes trying to reinvent the wheel doesn't make a better wheel. We started out testing AAA and very quickly found it wasn't anywhere near practical for commercial use. Compressed air is simply to cost prohibitive.
 

hammer21

Well-Known Member
This is true, but sometimes trying to reinvent the wheel doesn't make a better wheel. We started out testing AAA and very quickly found it wasn't anywhere near practical for commercial use. Compressed air is simply to cost prohibitive.
I would have to agree AA not the best choice for growing being cost, and the biggest draw back is only using 1 or 2 nozzles mist concentration is the biggest concern AA delivers the most mist near the nozzle and drops off the farther it goes we're using regular mist nozzles and using more of them would have a lot better equal mist coverage threw out the root chamber. AA is for dreamers trying to reinvent a wheel that is all ready round.
 

Atomizer

Well-Known Member
I dont know what AA nozzles you`ve used, perhaps none, because your idea of what they do in a chamber doesnt match with what they do in reality. Making comments about nozzles you have never used is dreaming :)
 

indrhrvest

New Member
I dont know what AA nozzles you`ve used, perhaps none, because your idea of what they do in a chamber doesnt match with what they do in reality. Making comments about nozzles you have never used is dreaming :)
It has nothing to do with the nozzles, the nozzles work great! They work better than HPA. The problem is the cost associated with compressed air. The best nozzle we tested was from Hart Enviornmental. Again, has nothign to do with the performance, the cost of the design doesn't make practical sense.

I realize some of you guys are focused on achieveing those perfect fuzzy roots, but we've seen no indication that it actually grows a better plant. In the end this is about growing plants, not growing fuzzy roots.
 
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