There has been some discussion on this site over what truly counts as Aeroponics or just amounts to NFT on steroids. There are those who say only the foggers or hydro-atomizing spray jets count because of the smaller water droplets (~50 micron).

However, the vast majority growers are using lower pressure DIY models that run sprayers with much larger water droplets. The Wikipedia page on Aeroponics outlines the difference between these so called high and low pressure systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroponics/

“In most low-pressure Aeroponic gardens, the plant roots are suspended above a reservoir of nutrient solution or inside a channel connected to a reservoir. A low-pressure pump delivers nutrient solution via sprayer nozzles or by ultrasonic transducers, which then drips or drains back into the reservoir. As plants grow to maturity in these units they tend to suffer from dry sections of the root systems, which prevent adequate nutrient uptake.”

According to this definition the DIY systems (DIY Aeroponics System~;`Hatch Style`;~) along with many brand name aero systems (EZ-Clone) using sprayers would in fact classify as low-pressure Aeroponics. In addition the foggers using ultrasonic transducers would classify as low pressure. I’m going out on a limb here and guessing that the problems outlined here apply more to the large scale high density Aeroponic experimentation by the likes of NASA rather than the small scale DIY models. I make this assumption based on the spectacular results Green Passion’s very own Hatch is getting with a low pressure spray system.

You can see here that the 120 site EZ-Clone manifold is similar to the DIY models constructed using PVC pipe.



Here you can see the 360 degree sprayer heads use in the EZ-Clone are similar in nature to the sprayers in the common in DIY system and can be purchased for such use.



The EZ-Clone is sold commercially as an Aeroponic system using a Mag-Drive Pump common to many hydroponic applications. The EZ-Clone 30 site uses the 500 GPH Mag-Drive to feed 17 sprayers. The 60 site model uses the same number of sprayers but upgrades to the 700 GPH Mag-Drive while the 120 site increases the number of sprayers to 23 and uses the 950 GPH Mag-Drive to feed them.



Even the 1800 GPH Mag-Drive only has a max 18’ of head. That translates to less than 10 psi of back pressure before the pump reaches zero outflow. Any Aeroponic system running on a psi that low is not going to give you any better results than a well constructed DIY model such as the one Hatch’s tutorial. Using the narrow definition provided by some growers the EZ-Cloner low pressure system using sprayers would not classify as Aeroponics and its retailers would be guilty of false advertisement.

Now your probably wondering how to build these so called "High-Pressure" systems...Well I'm getting to that!!!.Geeeeeeeeze

I enjoy building my own systems and saving a ton of money doing it. After a little research I came to the conclusion that these high priced Aeroponic systems are one of the biggest scams out there. Many use the same Mag-Drive pumps and sprayers common to DIY models at ten times the cost.

For the record I am not an experienced Aeroponic grower. I have never built or even used an Aeroponic system. I just finished my first indoor grow with a combination of 4x potted soil plants and 4x DIY DWC/Drip 5 gal. buckets with great results(pics available soon). I’ll do a tutorial on my bucket system next.

If you’re looking to find a tutorial from someone with experience building a high pressure system GOOD LUCK. There are DIY tutorials for low pressure systems galore but Google “hydro-atomizer” and the line goes dead. If you can find one please share, but in the words of a wise old grower from an old thread on another site:

Q: “If I sound frustrated it's because I feel like people are making this out to be more complex than it is. A stupid pump that will push at least 1.6 GPH at 75-100 PSI through 1/2 inch PVC over an area of 55"x86" doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to find... The difficulty seems to be that people don't know anything about the pumps they sell other than the GPH.”

A: “Because it is complex and nobody can tell you the exact pump you need because most people on this forum have little experience with high pressure aeroponics... The ones that do have experience with aeroponics are mostly using low pressure mag drive pumps which is not true aero…DIY aero setups are NOT well explored territory weather you like it or not. There is no ONE pump that will work. There are many…Do some research your self instead of asking things to be spoon fed. Not trying to be an ass just pointing out that your exploring territory most people wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole ( and this includes most experienced growers, like myself who've tried high pressure aeroponics and ran from it screaming bloody murder)”

Now I could just skip to showing you what it takes to build one, but first I want everyone to know what the benefits of using a high pressure Aeroponic systems as apposed to the common low pressure systems really are. I took the time to gather all this data together so now all you need to do is read.

Hey What's Up!!,,Good Research, I Tested The PSI Of My Pump's, They All Were Right Around 12 PSI, The Spray Out Of The Misters Is Pretty Hard At This PSI, Just Wonder If A High Pressure System With 70 To 100 PSI Is Going To Cut Right Through The Roots?

I Saw A Nice System The Other Day, It Had Mister's & Foggers, It Was Also DWC, I Didn't Really Care For That Part, But I Did Like The Added Foggers, Might Think About Adding Them In The Future, But Tell You The Truth & It's Not Just Because I Built It, But These NFT System's On Steroids Are Hard To Beat!!!

Can't Wait To See Your System When You Get It Built!!!EH!!!

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Awesome dude, thanks for checking that psi Hatch. I thought that would be about what those Mag-drives are pushing. I’m getting a good deal on one from a friend so that where I’ll start.

I’m actually going to start with a system almost identical to yours and I’ll probably complete at least one grow with it before making any upgrades. The plumbing components I picked up are all rated to handle up to 125 psi so I plan on swapping out the pump and sprayers at some point later down the road.

I haven’t got to it yet but I’m going to show a way I found to run a Hydro-atomizer on ~40 psi or possibly even less. There are cheaper pumps available that run in the 40-50 psi range and I think a gradual progression in psi will help as I gain experience.

I think the hydro-atomizers that run on the range of 75-100 psi range are designed to release the water in such a narrow stream (through a .009 in. diameter orifice) that is then atomized into a mist of ~50 micron water droplets that I don’t think it would damage plant tissue.

I guess there could be a certain safe distance that must be maintained from the roots but I think you would only need one mister per pod so I don’t think that would be too much of an issue. Adding foggers would work great too and seems pretty popular among Aeroponic growers but are inadequate for extended growth.

Sound Like A Plan, Best Of Luck With It, I'm Sure It Will Be a Great Success For Ya..

I Hear Ya On The High PSI, But Just Think Of This & I Saw A Good Demo On It, ( I Need To Find It For Ya), But Like A Power Washer At 100psi Out From It Like 4' To 5' There Is A Really Fine Mist Or Fog, But Anything Closer Is Getting Pulverized.

I'm Just Interested In What You Come Up With, Maybe There needs To Be Some Mesh Or Deflector Between The High psi & Roots???

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maybe a thicker layer of silk screen? or coco coir balls in front of the the sprayers?

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they call me ishmael, and mobys music sucks. smile if you get it.

I’ll have to find some pics or detailed schematics of a system that actually runs on the 75-100 psi range. If they use any type of shield it should be visible and if there needs to be a 4-5’ distance it should be apparent. The atomizer I found can run as low as 40 psi but can handle 200 psi. Starting at 35-40 psi, I should be able to work out the kinks and determine a safe distance before I’m stuck with a high pressure hydro root trimmer.

Ya Find Us Some Schematics, I'd Like To See Them As Well.

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I’m currently in the process of tripling the number of plants in my next crop so I’m looking at different options. Aeroponics would save me from fighting to keep my rez temps under 72F or adding a water chiller to my ever expanding bucket system. It will also reduce the water weight on my tables, increase growth rates, and make transplanting from an Aeroponic cloner a cinch.

Plants grown using high pressure Aeroponics spend 99.98% of their time in air and 0.02% in direct contact with the hydro-atomized nutrient solution. The time spent without water allows the roots to capture oxygen more efficiently. Furthermore, the hydro-atomized mist also significantly contributes to the effective oxygenation of the roots. For example, NFT has a nutrient throughput of 1 L/minute compared to Aeroponics’ throughput of 1.5 ml/minute. High pressure Aeroponics provides the ability to support the needs of your plants with an ultra low volume (ULV) of water and nutrients and higher levels of oxygenation.

For my purposes a low pressure system running standard sprayers would work just fine, probably for years to come. However, there’s always room for improvement, and I’m having way too much fun with this so why stop there? We actually have a few options when it comes to upgrading a system of this type. The low pressure alternative to cranking up your psi would be to add a fogger. These come in a variety of designs and variations to fit your growing needs.

Foggers operate by oscillating at a frequency of approximately 2 MHZ which is two million vibrations per second. At this frequency the “nebulizer” produces a cold fog which can support the needs of plants using an ULV of water and nutrients. This fog contains extremely small droplets averaging only 5 microns which is small enough to be absorbed by roots and leaves on contact, which is why it can be effective using an ultra low volume of solution. At this size, the nutrient enriched mist behaves like a fluid but in a gaseous phase which can readily penetrate roots without drenching them in solution. In fact, most growers report optimal results with only half the concentration of nutrient solution they've used in the past.

Another type of fogger works on Teflon coated ceramic ultrasonic transducers, specifically designed for use with dissolved nutrient solutions, so they help prevent salt buildup which causes premature failure. These come in one, three, five, or even ten-headed models which provide a larger output capacity and more readily withstand corrosion and salt buildup. These foggers are adaptable to many horticultural applications including root fogging, foliar feeding, growroom & greenhouse humidity generation, and even ultra low volume pesticide application.


Nutramist Aeroponic Fogger / Hydroponics Fogger / Ultrasonic Propagator and Ultra Low Volume Foliar Feeder and Humidifier.

The ~5 micron droplets tend to cause allot of micro hair growth on the roots without enough lateral growth. While this factor can be beneficial when it comes to propagation it tends to create problems with long-term growth. For long-term growing, the mist system must have significant pressure to force the mist into the dense root system. It also becomes difficult to evenly disperse the fog throughout the root chamber and complex ventilation often becomes necessary.

According to the “Aeroponic Research Report” by James Clawson, Sr. Researcher, BioServe Space Technologies, NASA. Aeroponic growing systems for greenhouses and indoors the natural solution for clean aeroponic food indoors

“Tibbitts used a vaporizer that delivers a continuous mist or fog to the stem and root sections of the plants in their apparatus. This approach's main limitation, one which Tibbitts addressed, is that interruption of the fog to the plants would soon cause loss of plant life due to lack of water. Another limitation of a continuous mist is that it can contribute to fungal and bacterial growth in the vicinity of or on the plants. A third limitation found by researchers is the difficulty in delivering nutrients to all the plants when they had a high density of plants in their Aeroponic chamber”

Basically the fog systems have trouble with large high density growth but would probably work well with small scale or short term applications. This is where the hydro-atomizing spray jets come in to play. Most operate at around 75 psi in orders to release a 3-5 second burst of 50 micron mist. The tricky part is getting your water pressure up to the 70-100 psi required and releasing it in a 3-5 second burst with intervals up to 120 minutes. Next up, Ill show you how it’s done.

It may not be easy, but I still believe we can build a DIY high pressure Aeroponic system for a hell of allot less than the commercial models are sold for. I suggest planning for gradual upgrades. If you can’t afford the high pressure pumps and components right now just start with the plumbing.

I’m using ¾” PVC pipe with some brass valves and adapters that I picked up at Home Depot for about $100. I also picked up a psi gauge that fits into a PVC T-section to aid in my experimentation. Make sure everything is rated to at least 120 psi, that way you can add pressure to your system as you progress without having to rebuild all the plumbing.

I’LL HAVE TO PICK UP FROM HERE GUYS, I’VE GOT A BUS TO CATCH.

Peace Out Yall

Wassup all, just joined GP when I came across this post on google.

Hope y'all don't mind if I join the conversation, i'm in the middle of designing a "true" high-pressure aero grow at the moment.

I ended up deciding on true aero after having my DWC room for a few months. Too many tubs, too much water, too much nutrients, too much maintenance because everything you do is multiplied by the number of tubs you are doing!

I was looking for something that would let me run a single reservoir, I couldn't really wrap my head around how NFT works, so I started looking at aero, and of course came across the information about "true" aero requiring high pressures (i.e. 100psi), 50-micron droplet size, etc.

Anyways, I have done a buttload of research into nozzles, pumps, etc. I will pull up a chair and let Airphat do his thing, and if I can chime in and help I will.

Looking forward to the discussion!

By the way, I won't link it here because I don't know if it's allowed or not, but if you google "true high-pressure aeroponics" the first link is my thread, the title is about nutrients but there's a lot of true aero info in there.

Any Research Links What Ever You Have To Share Is Fine On This Site. You Might Ask Airphat36 If He Mines Any Extra Link's In His Thread???,,But If You Would Like To Start One Of Your Own???, Our If You Would Like To Add In One Of My Thread's Feel Free..

BTW, Welcome To GreenPassion, It's Very Nice To Meet Ya, Feel Free To Start A Introduction Thread As Well, There Will Be Many That Will Want To Meet You..

Check Ya Later..

Cheers`;`Hatch`;`

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Thanks for the welcome Hatch, means a lot coming from a master such as yourself!

Please, be my guest and post any helpful information or links you find or create. Good to know I’m not the only one out there trying to do this. I’d like to see what conclusions about the design you come up with.

When I finally get this thing built its gunna need to stay low pressure for at least a few months. I’m not gunna have the money for high pressure pumps and components until I finish another crop.

well guys in my pics i have a high pressure aeroponics hybrid of sorts diy the pump puts out 1600gph at around 7 to 90 psi and it was a tough one to figure out but i run 140 3" cups out of it and 200 sprayers not the 360 but 180 sprayers and while it runs fantastic it is still a work in progress and always will be because i look to improve it more i also have a diy chiller that keeps the rez cool enough for me event hough my pumps are outside the rez and not inside well anyway i will try and get some pics up and the how to's but you can have a look lif you like not sure what you have in mind or how large but check out my grow and you can see the aeroponic type tubes let me know if this is the scale you want to use i also was looking into making smaller units for the closet just have never done a dwc more of a old school hydro guy here

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peace purple haze
check out my grow below


http://www.greenpassion.org/members/...w-stuff-since/
http://www.greenpassion.org/members/...ms/old-habits/

Well they're not schematics but it’ll do for now. Here is a link to the Genesis Series V Aeroponic System.

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:Z9UwJCwwoHkJ:www.biocontrols.com/aero6a-bottom.htm+aeroponic+Schematics&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk &gl=us

The pics are all copyright protected so it won’t let me post them here. If you fallow the link and scroll down you will find one pic that shows the interior of their pod. The pods are 48”L x 18”W x 16”Deep and contain 20 spray jets each.

Not only are there allot more spray jets per pod than I had imagined but they are placed and inch or less from some of the plant sites. I don’t think 20 jets are necessary as my plant sites will not be placed as densely as they are on these models. I’m also less worried about root damage but we shall see.

DIY Chiller? Please, do tell.

I'd love to check out your system but the links arent working, it may be a problem with Green Passion...IDK.

Well, so let's start with nozzles, there's brass and plastic.
1. The brass ones are more expensive.
2. The brass ones that have the right orifice diameter (to get an average droplet size of 50 microns) are rated at WAY too high minimum PSI to be used in a home grow. The guy at cloudtops says you can use them at lower pressures, but there's no droplet-size vs. pressure data so who knows what the droplet size would be, you have to guess.
3. The brass ones that are rated at our level of pressures, around 100psi, have too small droplet size, closer to fog size, and from what I have read fog is good for propagation but not so great for growth especially flowering.
4. The plastic ones are cheaper, but they don't have the detailed test results that the brass ones do, so it's hard to get a chart that tells you the exact droplet size at a given PSI.
I'm going with the plastic.

I should mention about anti-drip nozzles. There are anti-drip inserts for some nozzles, that open the flow when the pressure gets above a certain threshold, and close it when the pressure falls below that threshold. Their typical purpose is for when the flow stops, to prevent the nozzle, which is usually blasting mist, to drip down onto the floor or concrete or whatever, because eventually algae will build up there. This is not an issue for us because our nozzles are in the root zone and the root zone is light-proof, but the anti-drip versions will come in handy in my setup because I will use them to maintain pressure in the line. So in other words when the timer shuts the pump off, the mist will continue to spray, at lower and lower pressures until the line is essentially at 0psi. But with these anti-drip nozzles, when the timer shuts the pump off, the mist will continue to spray at lower and lower pressures until the threshold of the anti-drip nozzle, at which point the anti-drip valves inside the nozzles will slam shut, and that pressure will stay built up inside the line. Which means the next time the pump starts, instead of having to climb from 0psi to 100spi, it only has to climb from the anti-drip threshold to 100psi. This means a shorter spray time to fill the root zone with hydro-atomized nutrient solution.

Then there's pumps. I'm pretty sure the only viable option for high-pressure low-flow aeroponics is a diaphragm pump.
There are several companies, the most popular being Shurflo, Flojet, and Aquatec.
There are "demand" pumps, which are diaphragm pumps with a pressure-sensing demand switch, that will turn on the flow when the outlet pressure drops below a certain threshold, and turn off the flow once it gets up past a certain high-threshold pressure.
There are "bypass" pumps, which when asked to drive a flow too low (i.e. pressure too high) will re-route the extra fluid internally in order to maintain maximum pressure on the outlet. That's an internal bypass, there are also external bypass, not sure how that works, probably just let's you redirect the extra fluid back to the reservoir.
There are also demand pumps with bypass, so pressure sensing on the outlet, if pressure drops too low, will turn on the flow, and if pressure climbs too high, will use the bypass to re-route the extra fluid to maintain max pressure.

There's a cool way to match up a pump output with your needs to find the right pump, check out this page, the second chart of section 3. Basically, you lay your nozzle flow chart over the pump performance chart (not literally, do it in your head) and the point where the lines cross is your operating pressure.

Oh yeah, you should probably have a pressure gauge somewhere on the outlet side of your pump, to monitor the pressure.

Then there's the filter, nothing too exciting here, your typical garden irrigation filter or inline filter, I think a number 200 is the finest and so that's the one we want.

Outside of that, keep the root zone 100% light free, keep it at 68F (i'm planning on using a res chiller to accomplish this), and let 'er rip. Standard timing is 30 seconds on / 3 minutes off, but basically you want to get to a point where your root zone is full of mist, but not to the point where your roots are actually dripping wet.

The pumps i'm planning on getting are $130 each. How much will the low pressure pumps be Airphat? How much are you saving?

Any questions, shoot and I'll do my best. I'm no expert, like I said I'm doing DWC right now, so this is just research.

Hello everyone! I'm here for the long haul if this thread picks up some steam. It takes a lot to keep my attention. I'm a mechanic and I have a green thumb, so I have a lot of ideas and knowledge that I would love to share with all of you. I'm coming over from a place where everyone thinks they have the best system, that it is somehow fool-proof, can not be improved, and refuse to even listen to any new ideas for improvements. That bugs the hell out of me, like a fruit free tomato garden that, for some odd reason, is full of tomato flavored bunny rabbits. I want to be in a place where everyone is experimenting and trying to help others move forward. I have to get to work in a few but I am going to leave you fine fellows with a couple of little riddles to think about. I like to keep people on their toes and thinking, so here we go. Lol.

What parts of a fuel injected car can be used to make a free, high-pressure, true aeroponic sprayer manifold, that put out ideal, stoichiometric droplet size?.....and, what pre-assembled part under a car makes an ideal reservoir(most are made of plastic now) and pump setup?

These parts I mention, especially the second one, are usually obtainable, for free, from a scrapyard, because they usually have to pay to get rid of them, or they are just piled up in the back somewhere. I will post more on this a little later