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Solenoids & Drippers: Master Hydroponic Water Flow · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
• 0:06
  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Limited.
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  We make fertilisers, biostimulants and biopesticides.
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  But today we're talking about equipment, hardware, and what controls the water
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  flow and the amount of water that circulates into your hydroponic system.
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  And if you're new to hydroponics, you may not fully understand this.
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  You might just think, oh, it's a valve.
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  The valve is turned on either by myself or by a computer.
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  And then the water just flows round. But it's more complicated than that.
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  There are certain points at which control is exerted on the amount of water
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  and when the water flows.
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  The first one is what we call a dripper.
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  Now, this is actually not what many people who get into hydroponics think it is.
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  The dripper is the small circular
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  regulator that is attached to maybe
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  13 millimeter piping that transports the
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  water around the system so the dripper is the circular
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  thing you insert it into the pipe and that might that'll
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  have a setting on it it'd be like four liters per hour or two
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  liters per hour and they're all pressure regulated so
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  every dripper no matter what pressure is in
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  the system always flows at two liters per hour or four liters per hour six liters
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  per hour now the spike that comes off that dripper and goes into the ground
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  media that is just a way of delivering the water it does not regulate how much water flows.
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  Into the plants into the grow media so people
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  often get confused the dripper is the
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  thing that goes into the pipe the circular insert
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  the spike is the is the spiky thing that goes in the grow media spike has no
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  effect on the flow of water size of the pipe probably has very little impact
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  on the flow of the water because you're not going to be running at full speed.
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  This is not like an oil well. You're going to be at much slower speeds.
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  And then the whole system is normally controlled by a valve,
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  just like your taps on your water flow at home.
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  Now what they're called in America, they call something else only faucets,
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  but we call it taps here in the UK.
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  They are valves that when they open, the water flows out.
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  However, if you're in hydroponics, you're probably not going to do this by hand.
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  If you've certainly been in a large grow you
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  can have what's called a solenoid valve and that
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  is a valve that is closed when there
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  is no electric current running through it and when a
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  current runs through a solenoid it's
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  magnetized because it is a coil a metal coil wrapped around a cylinder and that
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  becomes a magnet and that pulls the plunger out from the and overcomes the the
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  exert the power exerted by a spring on that valve pulls it out and water can
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  flow through. This means that you can get computer controlled.
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  Valves. And they might be really, really simple computers that just give it
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  off at a certain time of day, or it might be a computer linked to a water meter,
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  a moisture probe, or might be integrated into AI and things like this.
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  But basically the whole computer is just going to say when that valve just opens
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  and closes. So it will be a complete on or off.
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  It won't be a gradual, you know, like when you're opening the faucet or your
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  tap at home and you might change the flow like that.
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  In hydroponics that's not the case. It's either open or closed and it's the
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  dripper that actually controls how much water is getting to the plant per hour.
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  Now obviously the valve you could turn it on for a second or you could turn
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  it on for two hours and you send it off for two hours each one of those drippers
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  if they were four litres per hour they deliver eight litres to the plant so
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  it's quite a lot of water.
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  But that's the basic method and solenoids are fairly easy to set up i don't
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  think i've got the electrical knowledge to wire them in,
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  but they can't be that difficult they are literally
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  just a very simple circuit and you your your control box when we say computerized
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  system it doesn't mean you have to be linked up to a mainframe and a laptop
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  or even a raspberry pi or anything as simple as that but a very very simple
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  computer that can be battery operated and just attached to the solenoid so if
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  you're interested in that.
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  What else can we say about water flow? Obviously you need fresh clean water.
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  And obviously drippers will get blocked by any sort of hardness so that's why
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  people tend to run on the acidic side of the sweet spot 5.5 to 6.5 in hard water
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  systems or they use RO water.
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  We're going to talk about how you dose and get the correct amount of fertiliser
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  into that water because obviously in hydroponics,
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  You don't just supply water, you supply fertigation solution that has nutrients
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  dissolved into it. We'll talk about that tomorrow because that's a different subject.
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  Involves meters and what are referred to as dosatrons in the trade, but that is a trade name.
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  Just like Hoover is for vacuum cleaner, a dosatron is a trade name for a specific version of a meter.
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  Jacuzzi for a bubble bath.
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  Anyway, that's been Hydroponics Daily for today. A short
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  and sweet one about solenoids and drippers in case there was some confusion
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  if you've liked this episode please do leave an apple podcast
• 5:38
  review as it helps share the subject of hydroponics with
• 5:41
  the wider gardening community because it gets us to the top of those gardening
• 5:44
  podcast charts if you're not on apple don't bother leaving
• 5:47
  a review or a rating because
• 5:50
  it doesn't really help but do click follow and check out utreema.co.uk because
• 5:55
  if you do want to dilute some fertilizers or biostimulants into your vertigation
• 5:59
  solution we have some fantastic options that you won't find anywhere else and
• 6:03
  that's true you know completely unique formulations okay hope you've liked this
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  episode and i'll see you again tomorrow goodbye.