Outdoor DWC Grow - Garbage Bins - Experiment

[shroomyshroom]

looking good brother,

The only thing that concerns me is the growth rate seems a little under what i would have expected

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Yeah they have basically been stalled as the first roots that came out turned brown. Plus we have had cold and wet weather which hasnt helped. I am just pleased they sprouted some fresh roots and didnt die!

Way too late on again to see what this system is capable of but at least i will have it all setup and maybe get some fat buds.

Probs just leave it setup for next season and have it ready to go in spring.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

So i conducted my first full field trial yesterday and apart from a couple of issues i can safely say it was success

My small battery has plenty of juice to power the pump and is being steadily topped up with a 10w solar panel. The pump is actually pumping more water uphill than is coming back down... this has led to the top few bins overflowing slightly but should be easy enough to fix by spacing the bins a bit further down/apart and allowing more gravity to increase the flow downhill.

I have put a simple inline tap in between each bin to stop the flow and just flick them all open and turn on the pump.

Waiting on some connection parts as i am losing too much charge with the cheap car wiring crimping set i have. Have to hook the battery directly to pump not via solar contoller.

My one plant with healthy roots is looking good and growing a decent rootball. Hopefully the others will catch up a bit.

More pics when i charge my camers

 

[GOT DANK]

fuckin dope. tagged. hope it works out

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Cheers Got Dank.

I now have it set-up correctly minus fuses and decent connecters/switches etc. I have em just waiting until i can be bothered.... so much else to do!

So heres a pic of my setup with 10w solar panel.

I have changed the inline filter to the one that came with the pump. It now sits at the bottom of the lowest bin with a couple small stones lashed on to weigh it down.

The inline filter created too much resistance and the pump wasnt strong enough to get water through it and uphill. The smaller filter works no worries!

Now that i spaced the last bin a few metres more downhill i have the perfect balance with the pump moving the water uphill the same speed as gravity is pulling it down.

This system is far from perfect but it works.

With the battery fully charged i reckon it works for 15mins or so before the battery loses charge and water becomes more of a trickle uphill. This is still plenty of time to circulate the water right through the system.

I havent worked out the time it takes to charge the battery exactly yet. But on a sunny day i have watched the volts climbing steadily back up. It was around 15-20 secs per 0.1 of a volt. So using my powers of guesstimation it takes an hour or so to get it back up from too low to pump to fully charged... i do have another 10w panel i could add to this.

Like i mentioned before the bins now have an inline valve between each bin to stop the flow of water downhill. This is a bit of a pain but i couldnt find a suitable res to have as an overflow.

This caused me to come a bit unstuck the other day. I left the pump running and went off to inspect some more traditionally grown ladies.... forgot i had the pump on and came back to find the battery too low to pump... so i lost a lot of water as the bottom bin was full and overflowing. Not a big deal at the mo cos only one plant has long hydro roots. I can still pump the water around each day and the flow coming into each bin flows onto the 2litre pot the plants are in and waters them.

Ideally to make this system work as intended and be a bit more practical i need another battery, (The one i have is 18ah) and a reservoir to act as an overflow. The bins do maintain about 5 inches of water on the bottom cos thats how high the drain holes are... so there is always a base amount to work with.

The plants are looking ok. Nothing amazing but most are getting nice frosty nugz...

 

[shroomyshroom]

nice work brother

 

[Shady Smoka]

Don't have your overflow dumping into a stream please. That would fuck up the ecosystem in the stream, and as an avid outdoorsman, I'm totally against that.
Just my bit

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Well considering i have found a frog swimming around in one of the bins thats not a major concern. But nope i wouldnt do that!

I need to find a suitable res...

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Gday again folks

The dreaded mold has arrived right on cue with the wet weather... so 3 of 5 bins now been pulled. Got some nice sticky buds.

The pump filter was starting to gum up and i couldnt pull it apart to clean it. This improved the flow uphill as i removed it. Not sure how my pump likes that but it was vibrating heaps and now its not...

I measured the volts on a sunny day and the 10w panel was topping the battery up nicely. When running it was sitting on around 12.07 volts and holding steady.

All in all just a wee bit of fun and more to tinker with to get this A1.

My real goal is to learn all this stuff and apply it to an automated irrigation system in a polytunnel i plan on building one day soon. Going to have it sucking up water from a raintank and dripping down onto pots/trays/whatever...

 

[Leroy Brown]

This is hands down the most badass thing I've ever seen on this forum. You sir, are my idol. I;'ve toyed with the idea of solar panel + battery + pump to water guerilla spots (We have no streams here) for a few years, THIS is my inspiration.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Cheers mate!

If you live in a very sunny part of the world a solar setup would be great. Might want to partly bury the bin or at least make sure theres shade for the bin and roots....

 

[aussiepurp]

this is awesome mate i loved it

 

[HillBilly1]

This is a slick setup i like it

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Haha cheers for the blast from the past fellas!

This system turned out to be waaaay too much of a PITA and i would have needed extra panels and batteries to make it work right up to harvest time.

What i did do was fill the bins with coco and perlite for a season and use the setup with a garden hose providing water in a flood/drip type doo da . That worked well but still not perfect and washed away too much N. So this last year i used the same polypipe but hooked up a couple blumats to each one. This was much better and less hassle just hard getting the pressure right initially going down the steep slope.

 

[HillBilly1]

Still a cool thing you have going.. Keep tweaking it till it turns out right..

 

[shroomyshroom]

dam silversurfer nice work mate with a little tweaking and some timers im sure that would be a set and forget type system and out doors at that

 

[dcue]

awesome idea silver surfer, good luck to ya

 

[Somebody_Else]

Any more updates? This is a pretty interesting idea, I'd love to see more.

 

[shroomyshroom]

Any more updates? This is a pretty interesting idea, I'd love to see more.

agreed

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Blumats all the way!

Big pots and living soil is the way for me from now on.