Air Pumps

[t.o.med]

I wanted to discuss air pumps what do you use and why. I see a lot of people use the linear pumps instead of the regenerative blowers and i dont understand why.

Heres some pics of the different units out there.

 

[Jalisco Kid]

Most people use closets or small plant counts. I love the fact you can get them cheap used and they last longer then most can grow. JK

 

[Lost]

Is the air hotter that comes out of a regenerative? That could be a minus..

 

[Jalisco Kid]

Heat is not an issue as it is a blower not a compressor.Though I have had some big ones that melted pvc somewhat. 80 cfms need about a 3" manifold from the 1.5" outlet so you do not build heat from backpressure. JK

 

[t.o.med]

never had a heat problem with the blower either. it seems like the a80 pumps are more expensive with less performance.

 

[OregonMeds]

Noise. Regenerative blowers are pretty loud. Even if you have a dedicated grow room like a garage if it's attached to the house at all you can still pretty easily hear it.

I just tried to cheap out on the air pump a little and bought a less quiet diaphram pump, but used it only one day and then decided it was just too loud to put up with also. I went right out and bought a sweetwater sl44. (Now that's a nice quiet pump.)

DD's system doesn't depend on air alone to keep the water moving like krusty buckets did, so there's no need for more air or the extra noise of a regen unless you plan to grow 10x the number of bins.

 

[mrdizzle]

i was thinking that the smaller airpumps, the 45liters per min ones, only use 8ws and produce zero heat, so ten of them use 80ws and give you 450liters per minute, my pondmaster 100ap gives you 100lters per mins, 100w and gets hot. hmmm

 

[nughit]

What is a regenerative blower. Are all 3 bottom pics regenerative blowers or just the 2nd pic down? My local hydro store carries the 3rd one down. Is that a good air pump?

 

[t.o.med]

nughit- first pic- linear pump
second pic-regenerative blower
third pic- another linear pump
fourth pic- compresser

 

[nughit]

Thanks TO I get it now. I was looking around on google for regen blowers but they all seem pretty pricey 400+ Is that the normal price on them? I dunno it seems like it would be over kill for a smaller grow. I also saw it mentioned that the regen's were pretty loud. is this true?

 

[t.o.med]

the one in the pic is $250 try whitewater same as sweetwater but half the price.

 

[nughit]

I was wondering if anyone has used a spa blower for air supply. Here is a link to one spa blower

They are quite a bit cheaper then the regens and seem to put out more air at the same DB level. Do you think it would work?

 

[t.o.med]

you should try it out looks cool.

 

[nughit]

I was just doing some research on the spa blowers and they use way more power then a regen blower. The one I linked to uses as much power as 500W of light so that is out. I thought I had a good idear till I looked into it more.

 

[mello]

what's up farmers.
i've got a question regarding water aeration techniques... i know doubled's shopping list included a hiblow 80, 10 way manifold, and 200 ft of tubing for his 10 airstones. i am hoping to get the farms opinion on skipping the 10 way manifold, and instead running 5/8 inch tubing from a hiblow 80 around the +/- 100 ft periphery of a room, with t's at each of the 11 plant sites, connecting 3/8 inch tubing to 8 inch air stones in each mpb bucket.

my concern is that i may be getting insufficient air pressure at some of the sites. any thoughts would be appreciated.

cheers.

 

[SKUNK420]

I got the Alita AL-60 works great for my 6 tub dwc system, 15 ga. water max w/ 4 med sized ecoplus round airstones in each tub. It does get a little warm or hot during summer but put a small fan on it and all is good. Not noisy at all when compared to a GH air pump.

 

[jammie]

hanging the pump by a thick bungie cord will significantly dampen the noise

 

[OregonMeds]

what's up farmers.
i've got a question regarding water aeration techniques... i know doubled's shopping list included a hiblow 80, 10 way manifold, and 200 ft of tubing for his 10 airstones. i am hoping to get the farms opinion on skipping the 10 way manifold, and instead running 5/8 inch tubing from a hiblow 80 around the +/- 100 ft periphery of a room, with t's at each of the 11 plant sites, connecting 3/8 inch tubing to 8 inch air stones in each mpb bucket.

my concern is that i may be getting insufficient air pressure at some of the sites. any thoughts would be appreciated.

cheers.

As long as you put a petcock you can adjust for ea stone great, but otherwise no you won't get even airflow. Even pushing air from both sides of a main ring isn't enough, you still need to be able to adjust ea line off the t's.

You can buy all the individual valves to do it very cheap on ebay if you want to do that, it's still just a big manifold though.

 

[FLtoMI]

I just bought this 1hp spa blower from the link provided, thank you. I'll try it in my current culture and let you know how it works out... I think if these work it maybe a much better option than the current pumps or regenerative pumps available...

 

[fatawa]

Noise

2nd that.some r as loud as 1gal air compressor.heres wat i fuck with.ea outlet runs its own 10gal tote