Homemade Miraclegro Liquafeed Refill

[Worth1]

In this pictuer you will see where the orifice is that I drilled out to 0.040.
If you wanted you can buy a set of carburetor jet cleaning files and make the orifice really small but larger than factory.
Buy doing this and/or changing ratios of mix you can customize the device.
It also looks as though you could do some modifications make the orifice really big and come back with a needle valve to make adjustments.

Worth
CapturMGLF 1.jpg

[FourOaks]

Worth, we seem to think along the same lines.

Originally I tried some tubing heated up and forced over the valve itself. It didn't work due to the fact that the valve didnt have quite enough meat for the tubing to cling to.

I then was on the look out for one of those "Plastic Melt/Solder" doohickeymajobbers, for a similar approach to yours.

Epoxy will work just fine.

[Worth1]

I have been trying to figure the thread pitch on the bottle.
I know they are buttress threads and the closest I can come up with in SAE is 6 threads per inch.
I am getting a measurement of .165 across the treads .165 X 6 = 0.99 or pretty darn close to an inch.
This is one of the reasons I want a lathe so I can make stuff like this.
Worth

[Worth1]

Now that I have something I can screw into the MG contraption I am going to buy one, they aren't that expensive.
The bottles are what cost the money.
With this I can come out of the thing with manifolds and valves and hook it up to my irrigation controller.

Worth

[PureHarvest]

Originally Posted by FourOaks

So, just for fun, approx. how much fertilizer would you mix up for that garden? Im just curious.

I can definitely see the plus side to the Hozon. The major plus of not being limited to a container size to dispense the goods.

Honestly though, Im not sure my well could deliver that much water.

Cole is in good shape because of what is already in his soil.

If you did not have a lot of pre-plant nutrition in place, you would have to run fert through your drip multiple times a week or at every watering to get the total pounds of fert you need to support a crop.

Consider a crop that needs 100 lbs of N per acre over its life.

On a small scale, that is about one pound of N for a 4x100' row.

For a fert with 25% N, you would need to use 4 lbs over the course of the season.

So, think how you would dispense a 4lb box worth of, say, miracle grow, if you were using a tablespoon per gallon.

4lbs x 30 tbs = 120 tabloespoons. That will make 120 gallons.

Drip tape of 1/2 gallon per minute per 100' row.

So, it taks 2 minutes to put out 1 gallon. If you ran the siphon for 2 minutes per day, it would take 120 days to dispense 4 lbs of total fert to give you 1 lb of N per row.

You could run the siphon, longer, but I would have to look into how much N per day would be too much.

[Worth1]

Alright I was at the store Wall Mart looking for something and looked at the MG thing to dispenses fertilizer.
I was going to buy it.
NOT as I am on my motorcycle.
But I looked at the orifice quickly and I could see the hole, it looked vary large compared to the hose end thing I have.
I also noticed that my adapter I made will fit right in it.

Worth

[Cole_Robbie]

Don't you have a cargo net? I can carry a 12-pack of bottled beer with one of those things.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Don't you have a cargo net? I can carry a 12-pack of bottled beer with one of those things.

No I dont I have yet to figure out what I want to do.
Some time ago I looked at leather saddle bags and they were all fake leather.
Then I got the wild Idea and still want to, to makes some cool ones out of teak wood.
To do this would require some rally fancy wood work.
I also have some ammo boxes I could put on it.
This is yet another reason I want a darn metal lathe.
They simply dont make the things I need to make the crazy stuff I have in my head.

Worth

[JerryHaskins]

They used to make hose end sprayers that a garden hose would fit on the outlet end if you removed the sprayer's outlet nozzle. Most no longer are made that way.

But I have been using these in my raised bed garden with my homemade PVC pipe irrigation system to fertilize for years.

Works great.

This is what the hose end sprayer looks like in the stores:



Mostly, you can find them in dollar stores.

[Gerardo]

Apologies for the slight hijack, Worth, would a dilute solution of CLR damage the components of this guy? Roundup Model # 190458 Thanks. I need to flush mine out thoroughly.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Gerardo

Apologies for the slight hijack, Worth, would a dilute solution of CLR damage the components of this guy? Roundup Model # 190458 Thanks. I need to flush mine out thoroughly.

I wouldn't think so.
Worth

[FourOaks]

Originally Posted by JerryHaskins

They used to make hose end sprayers that a garden hose would fit on the outlet end if you removed the sprayer's outlet nozzle. Most no longer are made that way.

But I have been using these in my raised bed garden with my homemade PVC pipe irrigation system to fertilize for years.

Works great.

This is what the hose end sprayer looks like in the stores:



Mostly, you can find them in dollar stores.

Unfortunately that is not a proportional sprayer. The fertilizer dispensed will weaken with ever present water.

Something like the "Chameleon" sprayer is proportional though.

[Worth1]

The MG attachment is proportional.
With the adapter a 150 to 200 mesh flush-able filter a check valve and figuring out mix ratios you can do just about anything with it.

Worth

[FourOaks]

Just an update. Now have a working bulk tank.

Worth had a good idea, epoxy the threaded end of the cut off bottle to a piece of 1 inch pvc. I decided to go a slightly different route. I cut off the threaded end and discovered that 1/2 inch gas black iron pipe (with tapered threads) will screw into the threaded plastic piece.

I went to to Lowes and searched and searched. CPVC, PVC, Nylon, Brass, and misc will not work. These will not "screw" into the cutoff piece. Not enough grip. Black iron and Galvanized works fines. Finally found a Schedule 80, 1/2 inch nipple, specifically "Lasco" brand. Oddly, another brand of the exact same nipple wouldn't work. Obviously tolerances aren't terribly close.

I picked up 2 of the nipples, a piece of 2 foot long 3 inch pipe, a 3 inch to 1 1/2 inch reducer, and a 1 1/2 inch to 1/2 inch bushing. I had hose clamps and clear tubing already on hand.

All pieces put together. Works like a charm. The bulk tank holds about 3/4 of a gallon of Fertilizer Concentrate. That is enough to produce about 243 gallons of fertilized water. I mounted the "bulk tank" with chain on my well house. Please over look the junk piled up.

All though this will continue to be a work in progress, it shows a lot of promise for a dirt cheap injector.

[Worth1]

Good going.
I bet the folks at MG if they see this thread are at this time trying to figure out a way to get past our hack.
I say bring it on.

It wouldn't take me no time at all to grind a forming tool to make those 6 threads per inch buttress threads and turn out a quality adapter.
I wonder if I could get sued?

Worth