Rdwc nutes questions

[Swedge]

I think I may have answered my own question

Looking at this diagram the Main white pipes are the feed pipes because the water pump will be draining the 4 pots therefore pulling water from the controller

My thoughts were that the 4 main white pipes were the drain lines and the water pump was fitted inside my reservoir with like a 4 way manifold feeding the 4 buckets and having gravity drain the system

Will either system work? Is 1 better than the other?

 

[Swedge]

Sorry if I'm not aloud to post links but are these the exact same as uniseals?

I'm guessing they are just open rubber grommets? Or are uniseals slightly different?


If they are the same that's a good price for us in the uk

 

[Papageno]

HAHAHA

I knew you were talking about an undercurrent system not an RDWC!!!


So you still have it backwards and should look at some videos of Undercurrent systems on you tube. The pump is not pushing water into the sites it is sucking them out of there.

In the picture you posted the pump in the middle is in the return line. It pumps to an elbo and dumps the water into the top res which is called an epicenter. The epicenter is the place where you do all your work including pH checks and mixing nutes. You wont have to deal with the site buckets except once in a while to check the root conditions. in the picture you also see a blue ball valve at the bottom of the return line. that is used to aid in more increase pressure as the water lines drop from 2 inches to 1/2. A good design also has an inline filter at that spot before the valve.

The feed pipes pipes are on the bottom of the buckets and in series which is why it is an undercurrent system. There is no recirculating happening. The epicenter needs to be sized and placed in a way that the water level in there is rather high and the water flows through the tubes initially just by gravity. The site buckets are filled initially by gravity.

Again look up undercurrent not RDWC and you will find videos of these working.... Here... Also I am not trying to promote their product I would build it myself. But follow their design. i am an engineer and I am telling you there are serious fluid dynamic things they are doing here that are not obvious!!!

 

[Swedge]

Thank you I understand now

Only problem I have is my controller will be outside my tent as it's only 1mx1mx2m

Are there any rules regarding the height of the controller? Does it have to be a certain height for it to work correctly?

 

[Papageno]

There is no problem having the epicenter external to the tent. In fact there are some added benefits to it.

However the water line is the waterline. If (when) the pump stops the water will settle to a constant height from the floor in all sites and epicenter. If the top of the epicenter is below the waterline you will spill out. If the pump is running so fast and you have a huge epicenter that is above the sites and they are close to full and you stop the pump then those will over flow the sites. To keep things simple most people use the same bucket for the epicenter as the sites and keep them level.

I would recommend using a float valve to automatically add water from an external reservoir that is already pH'd. So once you have it all set up and are testing for leaks you can find the water height in the epicenter and add the float valve to keep it at that height...which should be below the inlet T to the epicenter so that the circulation in the epicenter includes turbulence and mixing from the inlet T as shown in the video.

Just remember you will shut off the pump at some point and the water will level off to the same height from the floor in all of the sites and epicenter cause that's how fluids work.

 

[Papageno]

Oh and grommets probably work but Uniseals is just a fancy name for what in America we call bulkheads. They are fittings that screw together with surface rubber gasket seals and a feed through piece (the bulkhead). I think in the UK or Australia they have a different name but look up Bulkhead fitting and you should find them...

That one is a double slip so the pipe fitting you connect onto the ends is a slip fitting.

 

[Papageno]

By the way look at the picture you posted. The 2" feed pipes are cut at angles. They do that on purpose as that adds more turbulence to the water as it travels.

 

[Swedge]

Cheers yeah I've saw those but can't seem to find them here for a half decent price

I can get pushfit connectors and solvent ones easy enough

I did see that about the cutting at an angle but I'm unsure if I can do that if I use pushfit or solvent connectors

I would keep my water line level with my controller bucket, it's slightly larger than my plant buckets and will hold more water/nutes as well

I will also have a larger container auto topping up

 

[Swedge]

Also would it be ok to use flexible hose from my controller to my first 2 buckets? I don't think id be able to get them exactly online using hard pipe if my controller is outside

It will be 50mm hose I use so the same as the other piping just flexible

 

[businessman]

Nice setup

I use these.

[video=youtube;FFBIQGyfTg0]

[/video]

 

[Papageno]

He is asking about Undercurrent. Bubble Buckets is again a totally different technology. It is also a very good one but he is asking specifically about Undercurrent.

I think bubble buckets can be set up for a smidge cheaper and probably are quieter. Basically you can run it with a smaller pump and smaller tubing. But the water flow and the process is very different. My understanding is there is a bit of ebb n flow happening in a bubble bucket so the roots get totally aired out once in a while. Then the pump fills the bucket. Once the site res raises to the return pipes outlet then they all dump back to the res and empty out the sites using siphoning. That is why the returns have to be higher than the control res level.


And swedge sorry i missed your last post...but you can use flex pipe but it will decrease flow rate a bit. Hard pipe can be made to do anything with enough effort. I have seen it done a thousand ways. All "work" just some work better than others. I would think if your flex pipe is still 2" or larger then you should see no real difference. Why not just use it all the way? You probably can cut the angles easier that way in the ends.

 

[Swedge]

I can probably do it with hard pipe all the way but my resevoir is a outside my tent and it would be easier with flexi pip

 

[businessman]

you are correct with the ebb n flow. Personally it just makes more sense for me. i dont keep the res in my grow area so that water is not getting warmed up. More oxygen involved which is beneficial. Also i didnt like having to use a system with pvc just because the setups dont ever seem to be what i need, plus i like to flexibility of moving my plants or re-positioning them. Even if the flexible tubing drops pressure you can fix that multiple ways. Smaller hose, bigger pump, pressure pump.

 

[businessman]

i would keep it that way

 

[Papageno]

Yeah I have seen all 3 (UC, BB, RDWC with external res) done with the control res outside the room. That is the best way to do it for multiple reasons. I wouldn't however just buy a UC system or really any of these "off the shelf". The bucket locations are all constrained by your room. Unless you have a large space...a professional sized space... then you really need to custom build the tubing to your needs.

The nice thing about bubble buckets is if you are using a tent instead of a custom built box or room. Most tents don't allow for the access hole to go to the floor. Also the nice ones have a catcher pool in the bottom that you would have to flatten to run the tubes at the bottom.

So for tents I think the bubble is a bit easier. I am probably going to build a 4x5 room in my garage and set the res external as well but port the room so I can run it as intended.

It still would work if the res top is higher than the highest point of the feed tubes but you need to watch that much closer unless you have an external top off res on a float valve.