Fridge design/build

[Hephaestus]

G'day all,

Need some recommendations and advice; As I'm realizing I'm thinking I know enough, and should enough to know that I need help I come from a fishtank background; got tons of hardware and honestly I'm more comfortable with the hydro setups than the soil...

I'm going to run with a fullsize fridge (freezer on top) for my cabinet. Plan is a veg chamber up top; and perpetual in the fridge area. Main reason for the fridge setup - it'll be located in a cold space - very low humidity in this area anyway; and it's made of steel - I can work with steel; Wood not so much

I'm leaning towards an aquaponic / DWC scenario; (sticking with what I know) Run a goldfish filled sump (with an auto feeder) down below; feeding 1-2 tom aqualifter pumps into drip emmitter system to circulate through the DWC tubs (will run airstones in the DWC tubs as well) - overflowing back to the sump of course...

My thoughts were 220w (4 x 55w) PL-L's in the flower chamber, 2x24w T5HO in the Veg (already have all these lights on hand).

Still have to think through ventilation; Likely I'm going to separate the lights from the chambers with glass to help keep temperature in check.

I am planning to get a bit technogeeky - I have a bad habit of tinkering after Need to keep that in check, as the tinkering while wrecked never goes well... So I'm definitely going to build an arduino (http://www.arduino.cc/) system to handle day to day adjustment/monitoring - pH, Temps, light schedules, top-offs, etc... Then i'm hands off unless it tells me my attention is needed Started some of the preliminary work @ http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=145094 .

Of course tinkering while ... Think I might have burned up the LCD

Definitely looking for input, and advice at this point... I need all the help I can get

 

[CANNACO-OP]

Does it have to keep looking like a fridge or can stuff be everywhere and hanging out?

 

[Hephaestus]

Planning to keep it stealthy, There's going to have to be some holes out the back etc - but want it to look at first glance just to be just an old fridge

 

[disfunktional]

i love the full size fridge idea lots of potential. my vote is for a custom built tank. Boleman just started a diy thread on building it from acrylic( plexiglass). check it out it might be what you need. check out my mini fridge build in my sig it may give you sopme ideas.

 

[Hephaestus]

I've played with acrylic; and I will be using some - but not for the sump Glass and silicone are cheap and easily found; cast acrylic + weldon... Not so much...

Been one of the lurkers on your thread Looks good, hope mine comes out looking near as nice (ok, who am I kidding I don't have that kind of attention to detail). Even though I have all the tools; just not that precise...

Scrub - whaddid ya think that blue box in the fridge is?

 

[disfunktional]

thanx man. il be lurking on both of your threads and chimeing in quite a bit. i cant say enough how awsum i think this thing is.

 

[FreezerBoy]

A fish tank, DWC tubs, plants, lights, fan, scrubber (ballast?) all within a fridge is going to be a tight fit.

Is the tank some sort of sealed ecosphere? How are you going to get at it mid grow? Enquiring minds and all that ...

 

[Hephaestus]

Yup, tons to fit in - no doubt; may end up with the scrubber up top, likely will put ballasts underneath (move the big heaters out). Stealth yes, self contained probably not...

Still playing with it all in sketchup; seeing what will work, what doesn't stand a chance. Tank will be in the fridge - not sealed, but possibly on a heavy duty set of drawer slides so it can be slid out for maintenance (worst case, I can always do a couple bulkheads & unions for fill/drain capability).

Don't forget you've got to also think in 3 dimension - There's the door too! And I just happen to have about 30' of electrical chain / cat track/ whatever you want to call it sitting around to help with the opening/closing the door without trapping wires/hose/etc.

This stuff:
http://www.igus.com/show_mini.gif

Low profile fans aren't a problem - lots of those around; like I mentioned yesterday - whole bunch of them at one of the local liquidation shops - in the form of laptop cooling pads. 1/2" thick 5vdc powered (which I'll have in the fridge for the arduino anyway)

PL-L's aren't too thick - partly why I chose them rather than the 150w HPS sitting in the basement (I knew I was procrastinating on the security light for the backyard for a reason) Up top - more space; thus the sunlight supply fixture works...

 

[Buster Brown]

Sounds like fun, ill be checkin in on it .. Are you going to gut the plastic and foam inside the fridge?

 

[disfunktional]

have you seen my intake/light trap/sump cooler/ sump all in one thread? you should be able to use the drawer slides with it, and there should be plenty of air flow for the entire flower cab.

 

[Hephaestus]

Well picked up an apartment sized fridge today... Lots to choose from on craigslist etc; this one was the one that wasn't too ridiculously heavy; easily accessed and of reasonable size... Main grow area 25x23x36, veg 25x23x16". May have to recess the PL-L's into the top of the fridge area to keep ~24" vertical available...


Initial layout... Now it's time to modify things... standard 10g tank is going to be a waste of vertical space; might just have to custom build a tank to fit the lower 10"... More capacity is always better right?

Research tells me fridges are the worst for ventilation - not quite seeing why (other than it seems i'm the oddball prefering to work with steel). Plan is to run a pair of vents, intake from the bottom (drip tray - aka magic light filter); then run an exhaust up the opposite side - likely into one of those flush mount dryer exhausts out the back... Unfortunately no grille on the back to disguise it - so I'll see if I can't recess it a bit to make it less visible... Eyeballing some of those laptop cooling pads as a source for some airflow without loosing too much space.

Also had some thoughts about venting into a rubbermaid that'll just happen to be piled on the beer fridge

Sorted out some of the aquaponics today, going to run a goldfish system; likely oranda's (why not? nicer looking goldfish, tollerant of lower temps, and a big fat piggy that poops a lot). Going to run a simple UGF for filtration (got an airpump running anyway...); and an auto feeder to keep the piggies (erm? Nutes?) well fed. Likely a Using a TOM aqualifter pump (like an airpump - but moves water too - 3.5gph) into some rainbird drip emitters.

Will be having to play around with food types to keep the girls from stretching too much; not sure how this is going to work... But I have some thoughts / plans if need be...

Now waiting impatiently for a package from peakseedsbc

 

[Huggie bear]

I can semi-see in my head what you are going for and I dig it!
If I were to do it I would go with a lagoon style fish tank on the bottom with as you mention bulkhead style draining and a pump activated auto top-off like the Tunze Osmolator.
I have always been partial to those for their accuracy and dependability.
You could even light the fish tank area with an LED Fuge shining through a glass top partially painted with some of the krylon fusion paint.
On a fridge that large how come you are not going with one of the typical HPS or CMH set up's? Just curious.
Remember with those oranda's they can get up to 6 to 8 inches in length and recommended tank size is a min 30 gallon tank.

 

[Hephaestus]

We're on the same page I'm thinking.

HID - Just too much heat and vertical height required...

Yeah, all the goldfish get big... But seem to be amongst the better compromises; tollerant of higher stocking levels, the non-shite ones are extremely hardy and tollerant to chemistry/temp/etc, and they're pigs... Worst case there's a local shop I trust enough to be able to 'downgrade' regularly at...

Fish will get some residual light from the veg area - going to keep using the wire shelves; tossed 70lbs on one yesterday, took the abuse, pretty sure my plants wont weigh near that much

 

[ScrubNinja]

Sounds complex, but very cool. Good luck with this. So the fish tank is outside the fridge? Watch out for dude in the orange shirt, he may be onto you.

 

[Aerohead]

My A fridge has headroom, go HID, PL-L's are awesome for low headroom situations but yield suffers with such a large space. Obviously not knocking PL-L's but they are best used in tight spaces.

 

[Hephaestus]

This fridge wont have that much headroom by the time I stuff everything in there - starting to think I might have to live with 1'10" vertical for flowering (might be time to go re-read dr bud's thread...).

Is there a general guideline for ventilation? Mostly wondering how many CFM I need to turn over. Picked up my 'ductwork' today - but had to settle for a smaller cross section than I was originally thinking; wondering if I need to double it up or if it'll be adequate...

 

[disfunktional]

theres a great thread for this by redgreenery, ventilation 101. it has a chart for figureing needed cfm for wattage of light. not sure if its the same for pl-ls or not, but theres alot of good usefull info. ideally your intake size should be 2x your exhaust outlet. hope this helped!

 

[Hephaestus]

Well two things almost out of the workshop - so should be able to get going on the build this week

Tomorow's game plan - got the refridgerant out - so now it's time to make some space in the bottom; got the 10g tank that I intend to use in there... Door doesn't quite close (need about another inch) so time to make a hump dissapear Time to break out the power tools...

I need a tim taylor smiley... or a power tools smiley i think

Been spending a bit too much time playing around with electronics lately (see my other thread on grow controler (DIY)) It's about time I got down to actually doing some non theoretical work!

Still trying to figure out ventilation - this ones going to be a bitch; fridge is in a cool area, so I'm going to have to limit airflow through to keep temps up; but still keep it moving enough to keep the plants and fish doing ok... Probably will have to go with the arduino to control things to make sure things keep nice and stable...

 

[Hephaestus]

well my kick in the arse to get going happened today... Got a surprise in the mail from peakseedsbc ! Woohoo! Well done peakseeds - you had the better half VERY Confused as to what the heck I ordered

Into the test tubes with 4... Guess I best be hurrying up on the veggin chamber!



Mighta scavenged enough now to make some good headway; now just gotta get off my duff

 

[Hephaestus]

Tonight - was in hacking away at the fridge... While thinking about the carbon filter and how I'm going to set it up...

When it kinda dawned on me...

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/...12H2_nid=GSZGG93YJ6gsF3RH7CD92NglG69KMN1BRZbl

I have a regular supply of these - designed to eliminate organic vapours, acid gas, basically everything and anything that you wouldn't want to breathe... Think if I mounted four of them - they'd work effectively as a carbon scrubber?