Shadehouse Misting Systems

you were likely disappointed because depending on the size of the nozzle, and the pressure of the anti drip spring you might not have the right nozzle for the pressure... does your nozzle use an anti drip spring? if so at lower pressures remove those because any anti drip spring is going to reduce your atomization. Example our high pressure nozzles have a 200 psi check spring and ball. that means if they have 1000 psi prior to the nozzle at the tip it can only be 800 because the first 200 psi of force is used to overcome the spring. my advice don't use anti drip in anything other than a high pressure system. here are a couple of video's we recently filmed for our dealers to better help educate customers about differences in systems. note that our two tests using 200 psi and 90 psi , we use our standard nozzle but remove the ball so that it essentially disables the anti drip but you need the spring and impeller still in there to get the atomization. so if you went with the smallest nozzle made in the industry which is a .08mm nozzle or .003" you would almost get no atomization because it needs higher pressures to get a good cone effect. with lower pressure systems your often better served to actually use a nozzle like a .2mm or .3mm because even though your letting out more water the atomization will be better.

Here is a video showing evaporation points with use of a fan (might be needed for those in higher humidity environments)

 

good thermostat we also sell one a little bit cheaper if anyone else wants to reproduce this system and ours can come wired in I don't want to plug links on our site if it's not welcome but we have about 50 of these in stock that i'd love to move!

 

a lot of people think a misting system uses a compressor. This is a common misconception, there are things called air atomization nozzles but they are very rare, and when comparing energy consumption of the cost to make compressed air and as you noted the noise level a high pressure misting pump will always win on operating costs. As well you will be atomizing a much larger volume of water for the buck. A misting pump uses a motor, and a pump similar to a pressure washer. Where as a compressor (air compressor) is just that an air compressor, and a city water pressure line, that uses a special nozzle that allows the air to be used to break the water molecules and atomize. The system you mention in this thread we also build, and it uses a 1/10 hp motor and will deliver .25 gpm per minute or aka 19 - .006" nozzles before you start loosing pressure across all your nozzles. if you were to use 19 nozzles or really any size on an air atomization system don't quote me but you would be looking at a serious compressor and reservoir my guesstimate would be in the 3 to 4 hp range. Also these air atomization nozzles are very expensive.

 

This is part true part misconception. An r.o. system can be used to design an almost perfect misting system that should in theory never clog. The problem is that at even the smallest flow rate pumps of 1/4 gpm a basic r.o. system is made to produce usually 15 gallons per day not per minute so these type of higher flow r.o. systems are very expensive. Our solution for the budgets of a typical orchid person is a basic two stage filter of 5 micron sediment first, then a special calcium filter. Our calcium filter doesn't try to eliminate the calcium simply change the molecular structure of the calcium so that it doesn't crystallize (aka bond to itself). this is the most cost effective way we've found to do it. As well our nozzles are very cleanable compared to others since they come apart in three pieces. If i'm aloud to post it you can use coupon code orchids to receive 20 percent off your orders. I am honestly on here though one because it killed me to see 4 misconceptions in the same post, and two because we have a very large project we are quoting in central america and apparently they grow massive amounts of orchids so i want to learn as much as i can about what a typical orchid wants. smaller droplets? a certain heat range? what exactly.