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Which CO2 monitor

D

Diamonddss

semi sealed room, only exhaust is port ac. Scrubber running in room
i have 50lb CO2 tank and a sentinal co2 regulator.

So word is im wasting my time trying to use a timer? anyone disagree as a timer will save me big bucks and i only grow for self and wife. But if i need a monitor i see alot of choices but which is reliable and which is crap?
sentinal is digital
C.A.P. is dials
Green Air is expensive

is a timer really a waste of time?
 
Lazyman

Lazyman

Overkill is under-rated.
Veteran
With a semi-sealed room and a timer, you have no way of knowing how much CO2 is being used up, leaked, or turned into pixie farts. WIth a monitor you can keep it at 1500ppm, come hell or high water (or an empty CO2 tank.) I would recommend one of the fuzzy logic units, other models tend to overshoot and then have a lag before they get kicked on again, so your CO2 would range from say 900PPM to 1800PPM, wasting precious tanked CO2. A fuzzy will keep it at 1500 much tighter without the big overshoot.
 
D

Diamonddss

ok, well fuzzy start at about $550 and i may do it, but considering how small my operation is are any of the $300 controllers any good.?
 
G

globel

Member
the cap c02 ppm3 is good. I have used it before. Its not so good with a cheap regulator (they freeze and stop working). I suggest the cap regulator.
 
D

Diamonddss

i have a sentinel regulator and its non returnable so it will have to do.
 
C

Citizen024

Member
Fuck the CAP PPM 3. It's a piece of shit- give it a year and see if its still working. CAP digital products are cheaply built. Sentinel produces better products when it comes to digital controls- it's kinda their nitche. Much better at warranty issues too.

Green Air is great, but a Sentinel should do just fine. And guess what .. yes you got it. . the Green Air could breakdown as easily as the Sentinel.

And why does your warranty matter so much? Because ALL digital CO2 monitors tend to have problems sooner or later, regardless of brand. It's just the way they work . . errr or don't work.

A lot of old school heads in my area have moved back to cycle timers after doing monitors. It is understood that the digitals do a good job, just you don't always need to have them. Anyone who says timers never work needs to rewind the clock to when monitors didn't exsist and realize folks were doing just fine back then. I was around then- and trust me- it works.

Back then you had to use those crappy little glass vials to read CO2, now though there is a better way. And it does require short term use of a monitor/reader. What you need to do is rent (some shops do this) or borrow a digital monitor for a couples days.

In a sealed room (any room with a constant environment) you can easily NOT need a monitor. In rooms that flux a lot, or have climate controllers that are having to turn on often, it gets less accurate. AND your room, environment, EVERYTHING needs to be dialed in and stable 100% before you do CO2, or else its simply a complete waste of time and money. Seal that room up tight- weather strip your doors, tape any and every seam you can. No matter how tight you make it, it will leak out. You'll be shocked how fast a room can lose CO2 with no obvious exits around.

It's like adding nitrous to a car- better have your handling, brakes, engine, tires, EVERYTHING done first or your just gonna blow it and get no benefits.

Some people get so fixated on CO2's yield increase that they run into heat/humidity problems trying to keep it in. No good. Systems really have to be designed with CO2 in mind from day one, or your simply better off venting the shit out of it all the time. Remember CO2 runs best at higher temps like 80-85 degrees as well.

Here's how to do it:

Turn it on, turn your CO2 on, and hit a stop watch. See how long it take for it to fill. Then wait, see how long it takes for it to drop. Bring it up to your desired level, see where it drops too. Time how long your tank needs to run for to refill the room. If your AC is running all the time, it should stay pretty even in terms of your room air flow. Now repeat that 3 or 4 times, till your pretty certain how long it takes to fill, and how long it takes for it to drop. If your losing CO2 super fast your better off not turning it on till you can keep it stable for at least a little while. If your CO2 has to come on every 3-5 mintues, back to the drawing board. Your tank will be dusted in no time.

Take the average run time, add a bit more. Now set it all up again, and let it run and cycle on and off and watch the CO2 levels go up and down. With a little tinkering on your flow rate and timing you should be able to control it well.

Once again: rooms that don't flux alot or quickly make this MUCH easier. If you heat/moisten up real fast and have to dump air, ennngghhhh . . no so good. As it is your AC may kill it all together. If it goes up and drops fast with the AC on, your going to have to rethink CO2, or rethink how you cooling the room.

Come back and repeat your tests several times over the next couple days, try different times during your light cycle. If its all pretty close timing wise, your good.

If your getting more like 10-20 minutes between cycles- your cool. Now you can use a cycle timer (not a standard pin or digital timer) to set your cycles.

And your not paying $500 for a machine which are just known to be trouble.

The other thing with a monitor if can give you a false sense of success. What I mean by that is you could be draining your tank way too fast, and just kinda go through tons of CO2 thinking thats the way its supposed to be. Yes you get a yield increase, but if your wasting HELLA CO2, or always running an AC to keep it cool, or whatever- you may actually not be getting ahead because power/CO2 costs are so high they eat up the gain. In that case, you better off not running it and keeping it simple and using heavy ventilation. A monitor can obscure those details easily- all you know is your tank dies quickly.

Yes they are nice, but not ALWAYS needed. People were using CO2 and doing just fine before they came along.
 
G

globel

Member
When I used Sentinel I was running digital's and had major issues. So if you dont have digital ballast you shouldn't have an issue....
 
C

Citizen024

Member
Absolutely critical point there! Yes, digital ballasts will trash ANY other digital equipment from the RF they put out- no matter who makes it. As far as I know there are no RF shielded digital montiors (or other controls) out there, cause RF shielding it expensive. It is a matter of how many and how large your ballasts are. A couple and it might work. A lot and it won't. Some friends of mine had 12-1000w ballasts in a garage, kept the other stuff on the far end of the garage and it all worked out fine. I am not sure where the cut off is, and different ballast brands may also effect things differently.

My friends who went back to cycle timers used standard ballasts (many many of them) instead of digital because it will trash any digital equipment in your house (computers, cable boxes, flat screens, etc) if you have enough RF noise being generated.

That said, a friend of mine has 4-600 Galaxy ballasts right next to his Green Air monitor/controller and it works just dandy.

Last note: The RF pulse of the ballasts is fairly traceable. In theory (but to my knowledge I have never heard of it happening around here anyways) it is possible to drive down a street with a radio frequency listening device and be able to tell who is running lots of digital ballasts in their house. By what wavelength, and how powerful the signal is, it is entirely be possible to pinpoint which house it is in. A little scary if you live in a "non-friendly" part of the country. 1 or 2 would probably be okay, since it could be any digital devices, but once you start running lots of power into digital devices (say more then 2 or 3- 1000 watts) it starts to be a very easy to pick up fingerprint.

The other scary part: the radio frequency listening devices are totally available to anyone- meaning while the police may not be using them to get people (since all they really need to do is look at your house, get your PGandE bill and they can get a search warrant easy) - but. . there are other people out there who might be interested in figuring out who's got what in their garage, and once they know are willing to use force to take it.

Sadly we just lost a member of our community to robbery. It's all over the news; front page everyday for the last week here while they search for his body. it has really shaken folks who know the details up (and not all the details are in the news yet). When cash is on the line, don't ever discount what people are capable of.
 
B

bushdoctor215

Member
We`ve had good results with the Solatel co2 sniffers. 2 years of constant use with no probs. You should be able get one for around $500. I would never grow without co2 again. At 50 bucks for 50 pounds (compressed), it`s cheap. The time you save in veg is worth it alone. A timer will work just fine but a sniffer makes things so easy...
 
J

jugdishe

Member
Sentinel has great customer service but Im not at all convinced of their quality. I am on my third and the only thing I use it for is co2 control. humidity reading goes up and down by 20 points while you stand there and watch. the last unit took a dump and I had and ac unit hooked to it-- temps and rh soared and could have been a disaster. I no longer am willing to depend that much on a single device

don't think that by spending the money you get a quality device, I don't think there is a correlation, unfortunately.

J
 
S

sparkjumper

citizen I read your post and it makes no sense to me.Why are you putting yourself through all that crap.First of all the number size and development of the plants will determine how fast your co2 is depleted.Also which phase of 12/12 you're in.Stretching plants during the beginning of 12/12 use a lot more co2 than a plant at 40 days flower.The cyclestat and the mathematical calculations based on room size are bogus.Get a controller and you wont have more than a 200PPM fluctuation from 1500PPMK for 12 hours straight which is what you want.You way is labor intensive and inaccurate IMO
 
C

Citizen024

Member
I am not downing the effect of a monitor; read the beginning of the thread. He is trying to see if he can not have to buy one due to finances. I didn't say to use the math exclusively, I said to sit with a monitor and dial it in. I never said a monitor was bad (though they tend to crap out)- just that you don't HAVE to have one.

There is more then one way to skin a cat. It's good to options. Thanks for the input, I get what your saying, no disagreement.
 
S

sparkjumper

Unfortunately I've found after years of trial and error that there is in fact only one way to skin a cat when it comes to co2 enrichment.By enrichment I mean a process that results in 25-30% more weight in the end.The only way to skin this cat is with a controller that keeps a constant high PPM regardless of whats in the room and never fluctuates more than 200 PPM.Try skinning that cat any other way and you will just be spinning your wheels bro.I say this becuase I've been through it,to the max.
 
J

jugdishe

Member
I would agree with sparky. There is no way to know what you have with out some type of monitor. you can use math all day long, as long as your room is empty. the plant is the ever changing variable that you must take into you calculation.
I have seen what too little co2 will get you; scrawny buds and very few of them which we will all agree is a real drag after all you do to get something nice.
Co2 is at least as important to a plant growth/ development as light.

just my 2 cents...

J~
 
B

BubbleGumStarts

New member
Say you were running two sealed rooms, could you use the sentinel controller to just read ppms and dial in the grow room? I would be using the sentinal controller in the flower room.
 
S

sparkjumper

I'd probably get a sentinel also,not because I've had problems with my cap but because so many others have.I've had my cap PPM-3 for over a year now with no issues.Man what a difference from using a cyclestat timer!
 
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