building a mister

[K1LOS]

Hi everyone,

I have looked into making a mister lately, and it really doesn't seem that hard. There are 2 things that i am not sure of though. The first, how do i know what strength of a pump i will need? Second, will a 90 degree elbow in my pvc piping make a difference in the power of the pump required?

what i would be doing is pumping water out of a reservoire of some sort, into my pvc piping. The piping would go approx 4 feet straight up, and then 3ft across. I haven't put any thought into what size the piping would be yet, the thinner the better i guess. Maybe just hose would work somehow too, but capping the ends would be more difficult. I don't want to put a huge hole in my cage either though.


A
---------
. . . . . . |
. . . . . . | B
. cage . .|
. . . . . . |

where the periods are the screen cage, and the lines are pvc pipes. It was hardly worth making that.....i'm an idiot...

On the A pipe i would drill threaded holes into it, and then screw in misting nozzles. The left side of A would be capped, and the right side would be an elbow connection. The top of B would be the elbow, and the bottom would be capped with a hole in it. The hole would be to pump the water into the pipeing. I would silicone the hose from the pump into the cap (at the end of B) hole so it would be water tight.

Any reason it wouldn't work? Any idea what gph/psi/? i would need to accomplish a fine mist in this sort of set-up? I guess it would depend on the diameter of the piping too... Let's say less than an inch diameter pvc.

Thanks for any input

Geoff

[Sean Day]

If you are going to go this way you should just purchase a complete kit, I think Greg West carries them.

If you want to build it, again I would recomend going with a ultrasonic humidifier.

[Jeff Hathaway]

K1KLOS,

First of all, a 90 elbow adds the equivalent of 9' of similarly sized straight pipe. The effect is additional friction loss, but since this varies greatly with the flow rate through the pipe, you would need to know the flow rate involved to have a better idea as to whether it would make a serious difference or not.

Given that you're putting the flow through a narrow orifice (a misting nozzle of some sort), your flow rate is going to be low. Therefore I'd expect an elbow to make no difference whatsover. 1/2" piping or 1/4" to 1/2" tubing would work fine. You need a decent pressure to make mist, plus specialized nozzles. Either terminate your pipe with a threaded adapter (or drill and tap threads if you can do this), or use a threaded adapter in the end of your hose, and then use a threaded nozzle.

You can't silicone the pump to the pipe/hose. Most pumps are available with threaded discharge connections which you could easily attach the pipe/hose to.

Most small pumps that you would put in a reservoir will not produce enough pressure to be effective. Instead, why not tee off of your domestic water supply line and use a solenoid controlled valve to allow flow to the nozzle when desired? The solenoid can be controlled by a humidistat, timer, etc. This would be easier and probably cheaper than using a pump.

This is what I'm doing with the enclosures I'm currently building.

Jeff Hathaway
Sciensational Sssnakes!!