Watering Tool Not Dispersing Water Properly

I was wondering if anyone else has had issues with the watering tool dispersing water effectively?

Instead of watering the plants with a shower of water, the water re-combines as it exits the watering tool to create an aerated stream. This stream of water ends up digging holes and grooves in the soil.

Has anyone found a fix? Or is anyone fiddling around with their 3-D printer to make other watering tools?

Sounds like you don’t have enough water pressure. I’m running off a water tank and the pressure isn’t even enough to open the supplied water valve (most valves have a minimum pressure requirement), so I changed mine to a type that doesn’t need a minimum pressure. Even with that, the pressure wasn’t enough so I’ve added a ‘camping’ 12V water pump which has improved things. I’d expect it to be a lot better with mains water pressure.

I think it would be good to have different style watering heads for fine droplets vs large droplets. A misting head might be useful too in some circumstances, and a tool that drip feeds into the plant base, just some ideas.

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Thx. I’ll play with the pressure.

I like you ideas. I’d love to have different water nossels. Have you noticed if anyone has made new water nossel designs on their 3-D printer that we could download? I would also like the holes to be smaller on the watering head.

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Smaller holes will require a pre-filter to keep particles from clogging the holes. Almost all drip irrigation systems need a pre-filter and some kind of pressure limiter.

As for the watering head, its mostly ill conceived, but looks snazzy. I’d much rather have regulated drips placed under each plant, just below their leaf line. Regulated drips come in .5, 1 and 2 gallon/hour varieties for example. With small watering tasks, only regulated drips can guarantee a precise delivery of water to a plant. For example, a .5 g/h drip delivers approximately 1 oz/min of water. Its then rather straight forward to calculate how much water you need based on transvaporation, soil type, plant type, humidity, temp and other factors. Thats the sort of thing computers, especially with a real time weather feed are good at.

Additionally, dripping below the leaf line means you can drip during daylight hours. Spaying plants during the day will scorch the leaves. Spraying at night will lead to fungus/mold issues if not carefully controlled. Spraying waters weeds as well as desirable plants. Drips water only your plants and can run when you actually need water.

Ok. Thanks for sharing. I do have a pre filter on my current system. I also have a drip irrigation system in my other garden. That said, I’d like to figure out how to maximize yields using tools that can be controlled remotely through the farmbot. I travel a lot but love to garden. Ideally, I will be able to control my garden remotely.

Have you though of ways to integrate drip irrigation into the farmbot architecture? I suppose you could lay drip irrigation manually after planting, then hook a separate water line to the drip system and control an electric valve with one of the “pins” in the system… interesting thought…

I’m doing all my drips with a standard irrigation system run by an open source controller that has web access and uses weather data to modulate schedules. Its a very hackable device.


https://support.rainmachine.com/hc/en-us/sections/206289127-Developers

BTW, this device will work even if the cloud is not accessible :slight_smile:

Hi,

I have been having the same problem where the water had been smashing the seedlings as the drops coming out were just too big.

I have come up with a solution that is working pretty well.

I took the water hose off the UTM and attached it to an irrigation riser with a misting nozzle installed. The riser happened to fit perfectly inside the hose. You can also use it with other types of nozzles.

I 3D printed a simple part to hold the riser in place and attached it to the Z axis aluminium extrusion.

It was windy the day I tested it but it works very well when turning on and off between plants, watering only the targeted plant.

X axis offset = 30
Y aixs offset = -50

If you want to use this design, contact me and I’ll send the STL file.

Regards,
Mark

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This looks great!
Can you post the STL file here so all in the forum can benefit from your effort, please?
Also, if you could capture and post a few close-up detail pictures, that would help to explained your idea.
Big thanks!

Hi,

Here is my setup.

I have replaced the nozzle shown here with a misting nozzle and that has made a big difference.

Here is the STL file.

farmbot watering nozzle.stl (53.3 KB)

Attach with M5 x 16mm and T nuts provided with the farmbot.

The risers are made of polypropylene and the ones we have in Australia are about 7mm diameter. Dependent on your 3D printer, you may need to drill the hole so the riser fits well. I cut the riser to length with a hacksaw. Keep in mind that the nozzle needs to be high enough to not hit the tool holder during tool changes.

The misting nozzles are the ones made specifically for the risers and work beautifully for this purpose.

I hope this helps people get a watering solution that doesn’t hammer the plants, particularly when they are seedlings.

Regards,
Mark

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Hi, what type of water nozzle did you use with that mounting bracket. Can you send a link to the type of nozzle you used in your setup?

Hi,

I used pope misting nozzles. Hopefully you can find something similar in your location.

https://www.bunnings.com.au/pope-micro-jet-mist-spray-10-pack_p3122786

Cheers
Mark

Hi,

I just realised that the nozzle was only part of the solution. The nozzle goes into an irrigation riser like this one

https://www.bunnings.com.au/pope-300mm-rigid-riser-with-adaptor-single_p3129089

The riser was cut shorter with a hacksaw and happened to fit perfectly inside the farmbot water tube. I also put a couple of zip ties on there to make sure the tube didn’t fall off.

Thanks
Mark

I do like your solution. I am hoping to come up with a solution that uses the same mount as the current watering head.