This is my new strawberry air atomizing aeroponic system. It contains an quiet oil-free compressor (160 liters per minute on input, 54 dBa), the main pressure regulator with 5 micron filter and dryer, a nutrition tank made from a plastic beer keg, pre-pressurized by one of the air line leafs with its own pressure regulator, air atomizer line with its own pressure regulator, a one nozzle so far with two normally closed 12V electric valves (one per nutrition and air supply lines), a hand made controller and a root chamber 1250 x 700 x 500 mm (~ 49″ x 28″ x 20″).
The controller contains a esp32 devkit v1 board, a step-down power converter (12V to 6V) to power the esp32 and a solid state relay to open valves. The controller and valves are powered by some local brand 220V to 12V@5A LED power adapter I bought via local BBS.
I’ve written a separate small web-based control panel which works outside of the controller (currently on my laptop. It will be rewritten, of course, to be more high-level: like to set timers and control sensors (not available yet), but the controller will work independently. Now it works independently too, but it require external command to start and stop misting.
The project isn’t finished, so stay tuned!
Can you tell about solenoid, where did you buy them? Is it 12V DC?
update? look forward to seeing it!
I guess you had to buy nozzle with flow adjustment.
One of the best home made systems I've seen. Don't know much about aero using air compressor to mist as apposed to using high pressure. but this looks like better results may be achieved. cheers
My friend, I would recommend too use either composite material or ABS for the chamber as some nutrients will have a ion adverse effect with EC instability when it comes in contact with stainless steel. This I know caude i actually hand Crafted my sprayers by hand before having them made at a milling shop which will fill a 4X8 table in under 15 sec. The plúm of the sprayer you want too ensure they arent much smaller than 1.2micrometer. Yes micrometer which I used a micro gageing ruler when i handcrafted my needle that projects the volumized liquid into 0.227 microns under 15psi
The chinese external mix nozzle seems to produce a better droplet range. The mist in the other vids seems like the droplet size is too small. With AA, the moisture accumulates over a period of time, the roots shouldnt become wet during one misting pulse. I would test the real flowrate of the nozzle so you know exactly how much liquid is being delivered to the chamber per second. As your chamber volume is around 437L i`d recommend using 2 nozzles, one mounted at each end of the chamber in a staggered arrangement. I physically measure the angle of the flat fan mist pattern and make full size paper templates out of kraft paper to place inside the chamber. This helps to visualise the mist patterns (in 2D) and makes it easier to decide on the best position to mount the nozzles. The mounting height above the floor will depend on the vertical thickness of the fan pattern but typically you`d mount the nozzles something like 100mm-125mm up from the floor.