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Old 01-31-2009, 02:59 AM
Freebird Freebird is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 3
Default bottles to the pipe

There is a better way to attach 2 liter pop bottles to the pipe-type hydro system. It is suggested that you use 1 inch couplers and drill out the cap, glued into the coupler. This is a bit of a problem if one isn't familiar with cutting thin sheet materials. I can see a bunch of cut fingers from this. (I'm a toolmaker, I know about cut fingers)... My system uses 1/2 inch MNPT to 1/2 inch Female slip-on adapters with a 1.5 inch long 1/2 inch pipe glued into it. Sched. 40 PVC 1/2 inch inside just fits into the neck of the bottles. With a little silicon it's watertight. The good thing about this is that the threaded couplers are easily removed and replaced with MNPT pipe plugs to seal unused outlets. The bottles can easily be replaced as silicon dosen't stick to PVC or PET (what the bottles are made of) very well (providing it's smooth and shiny) but well enough to be secure and watertight.All you have to do is give the bottle a good twist when it's installed in the rig to break the silicon, then with a wrench, remove the coupler for cleaning, bottle replacement, etc. It's a simpler system to get going for the "mechanically (plumbingly) challenged" and dosen't rely on lots of glue to keep things together. The bill for the materials for an 8 plant system (canadian Home Depot, Vancouver) was $16.27 and that includes a can of glue, and an extra length of PVC pipe. All external apparatus is secured to the system using threaded couplers... It makes more sense to waste a few feet of teflon tape every cleaning than replacing pieces you have to cut off.

It's going to be up and running as soon as my skunk clones root... Hope this helps...

Smoke one for me!!!

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