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Bangarang
Ok, I've had a bit to look over the hydro buddy. I must say I prefer the premixppm vs hydro buddy. With premix, you play around with components and get to see ppms; whereas with hydro buddy wants you to pre-determine ppms for each element, then it will tell you the weight required. At any rate, here's the process you would want to use for the Jacks mix.
For the experiment; I used the same formula that jrpeters recommends with hydro buddy (same as shown in the right pic above). So, since hydro buddy wants ppms I started with entering the ppms shown in the premixppm; to get a final comparison of the 2 calculators.
1. Run hydro buddy
2. "main page" Enter the desired PPMs for each element (elemental for NPK not NO3, K2O etc) **Here I entered the ppms shown in pic above to see what HB showed for weights, so 145-51-210 etc.
3. Name your formulation, I chose "Jack's mix"
4. Click Substance selection (lol)
5. Hydro buddy comes preset with a formulation already. You will see 2 columns. Left column is the database of compounds and the right column is what's in your "Mix". Remove all but Cal Nit and Mag Sulf from the right column.
6. Click "Add Custom"
7. Name this custom whatever your using "jacks hydro" in this case. Do not use any punctuation only letters.
8. Next input the % shown on your guaranteed analysis for each element. **Be sure to select P2O5 and K2O for those as mfg list as such. (these should match percents shown in above left pic)
9. Once you've entered all the element percents, click "Add to database"
10. Now on the left column of your "substance selection" window you should see this new compound; "jacks hydro" in this case. Highlight that and hit "add"
11. At this point you should now have 3 substances on the right column. Jacks Hydro, Calcium Nitrate and Magnesium Sulfate. If so, Close the window.
12. Now back on the "main page" enter the "Volume" of solution you are making, that you wish to achieve the ppms we entered in step 2. (For this experiment I chose 1 gallon volume)
13. Hit "carry out calculations" and you should see "result ppms" that pretty much match what we entered in step 2 above.
14. Finally if you click results page. It will show you the required Mass in grams of each component and show a predicted EC.
15. Once your happy with everything you can "add formulation to DB" so it will store your mix and components.
Some shots to help:
If you compare the 2 calcs; hydro buddy shows a result very close to the premixppm. It would probably be a bit closer if I did custom Calcium Nitrate matching jrpeters guaranteed analysis. There is a small bit of variation between the two.
Premixppm using jrpeters recommended: 3.69 / 2.44 / 1
Hydrobuddy shows a requirement of: 3.72 / 2.74 / 0.993
hope this helps