by Ken
Double column hanging windowfarm v.2
10:25 am in Completed Window Farms, Featured Post, How-Tos, made from scratch (without a kit), Materials and Resources, Other Cool Urban Ag. Stuff, Plants, posts with pitcures!, Projects in Process, R&D-I-Y, Water flow, Windowfarms Project News by Ken
Hello from cccoollld Tokyo!
It’s been a couple of weeks since I built my first double-column hanging windowfarm design, and so far it’s been very solid. Good water flow and stable system. My plants are doing great! (except for my strawberry plant. Any advice on that?)
I wanted to improve on my original design, as having things look good as well as function really well is important to me, so here’s my newer and improved design. (the one on the left is the new one, no holes cut in the buckets yet.)
The fifth blue bucket on the right side column is now the water reservoir, which I think looks better than a bottle at the bottom.
It looks very similar to my v.1 model, but the functions are quite different, although it still uses the basic airlift system. I ended up replacing the clear tubing with acrylic clear pipe, as it just looks much better and is easier to clean.
In the above picture of the old/new designs, you can see that there is a T at the top of the tube. This is because I reduced it down to one airlift which splits at the top.
Turns out that the distribution of left and right for the water coming up is directly proportionate to the amount of tubing there is left after the T, so cutting them to the same length gives an even flow between the two sides.
You can also see that there is much less tubing hanging below the water reservoir, which looks less cluttered.
Here are the improvements that v.2 has over v.1
- Looks better (IMHO)
- Reduced the piping/tubing needed by 50%.
- Still get the same amount of water flow to the plants.
- Cleaning the tubes just got twice as easy!
Nice with the T at top to distribute the flow to both sides. Nice that you are economical with tubing too. Hopefully someone else will confirm your result. (Distribution is even if tube length from both sides left and right at top T is even) because it is a nice simple relationship.
Brian
I was excited too, I couldn’t wait to build a prototype. Sadly water distribution was not even for me.
I have a couple of constrains though: I’ve used 3/16″ ID tubes, which is not the best solution for air tubing. Moreover, this vinyl tube is a bit flat, I just disqualified it from “production” use. However, it works just well for normal t-valve technique.
I checked top drip tubes to be equal in size, but it doesn’t help much: just wad the faster end a second, and that will be the slower one.
Maybe a speed valve works, but I doubt that.
For the water distribution, I did a simple test where I used a long one and short one, and then switched them after some time, then tried even lengths.
Not completely exhaustive testing, but consistent results so far.
Hi!
Yes the reservoir bottle ‘disguised’ aswell looks much better!
But i liked the green things sticking out of the botom of the buckets ! What are they?
And the principle of the T is really interesting too!
“Turns out that the distribution of left and right for the water coming up is directly proportionate to the amount of tubing there is left after the T, so cutting them to the same length gives an even flow between the two sides.”
Did you try it out and measure what came out on bothe sides or did you just know your physiks?
What is the difference between clear tubing and acrylic?
Why can you clean it better?
Is the cost the same?
I think i read your first post about that nice lookibg system. It soundet like there where already holes in the bottom of the buckets + winding/ screw thread for the PET bottle
Or did you do it yourself?
I think i have to look up your old post again how you mounted the buckets though…
I think the plants don’t mind if the bucked lash is not behind them but left or right
Did you think about somthing to get them down though?
Or can you reach compftable even the upper buckets?
I myself thought about something like a Tackle (maybe thats the right word) its something round where you put a rope through thogh you can lift it easily up and down.
And it should be able to turn around to maybe… But that maybe would make things to labile because must of the time it should just stay in the one position..
I hope you can answer my many questions^^
many greetings from Germany
Yours Ziska
Oh and what exactly is wrong with your strawberry?
Is that the upperone on the left or the last blue one? ^^ these are the only ones who do not look quite so green^^
I just remember at the moment about strawberrys that you can trigger blooming with the correct light and dark periods.. But they should probably be healthy first
Zis
About the water flow, I used brand new tubing and pipes, and the results were pretty consistent. I can see though, that this may not be the case in all situations, and maybe mine was just a fluke.
I tested the volume of water coming down on each side again this morning and two cups were filled to the same level after 5 mins.
I’m not going to test uneven tubes again for now because this system is working pretty well so far, but I’m very interested in the results if others are going to try it themselves.
I made a new experiment with 1/4″ tubes, and it worked pretty well. I let it run for a couple of minutes, doing basically the same thing (holding two empty bottles in my hands), and while I could see some slowness here or there, both bottles were filled with more or less the same amount of water. Maybe a wider tube gives better results, but for me the current setup is good enough.
I also tested shorter loops (1.5′) with 1/4″ tubes. Even a 2′ loop is too small for a 3/16″ tube, but this makes wonders.
I’m not sure, but maybe a single 3W air pump can lift water for four columns leveraging both top drip splitting and bottom air splitting.
I can safely say it saves just a few cents, but one should never buy narrow tubes even for experiments
Thanks @Ken, you gave me inspiration
What did you use for buckets?
These are wonderful! I’m curious to see how they’re doing now, if you’re still tending them.
Ginger,
These are plastic buckets that I picked up in the equivalent of a dollar store here in Japan. They seem to be designed to hang on a hook on a wall.
Thanks Cassie,
I have since moved to a new house and am not maintaining this setup anymore, but considering starting it up again, maybe with a new improved design.