Refrigerator Grow

hello all update for today



seedlings are looking great and the two clones look good there 6 days old today. I will be taking pics today when the lights come back on at 8pm.


Thanks

Frig

Hello all
Update here are the pics is promised you all earlier. The 4 seedlings as you can see are loving the 3 5000k CFL's along with the clones. I am happy to report that the thermostat worked perfect for -20 with the wind chill with a 24hr low of 52.5 after 20hrs no lights the others grew a lot will get better pics tomorrow. thanks for reading guys

Frig

Thats great man. I still haven't gotten my fridge yet, I think my buddy is dodging me. I may have to start looking again! I need it soon, I have 4 seedlings about a week old and they are gonna need their own Veg. place...

In a pinch you an use a cardboard box till you get your frig. I can tell you that your going to need a thermostat and fans to control the temps. make sure your to have a 4" intake and at least a 3" exhaust. you can use a motorcycle cone style air filter filled with carbon it works great you will smell nothing. any help I can give is yours man. Like i said spend two hours hawking craigslist and you should have your frig that's how i got mine. I will post pics of the seedlings later today they look to have doubled in size from 9pm last night.

frig

hey man just checked out your meltdown, that really sucks but im glad they recooped! im hoping the same for my babies too

Well I called my bud this a.m. and caught him at his shop. He had some dead ones to gove away but they were super nasty... He had a big side by side and I asked about it and he said he wasnt for sure if it works or not so I paid him $20 for it.. Probably what he meant was I think it works and I can fix it up and sell it. You got any advice? It has smnall freezer on left side and refrig. side has a small outer door for access without opening main door. I got to thinking and if I had a working refrig. I wouldnt have to worry about heat in summer. Im gonna make a Veg. room out of it. It should work great I can lock it up to keep nosey people out.

Gratz bro let me know if you need any setup ideas I will help any way I can.

Yes anything you can think of, here is pic... 4'11" tall inside, right is 20" wide and left about 11-12. Ill plug it in and see what happe4ns in a few hours, I hosed it off pretty good, coils were filthy filthy... Im thinking maybe upper and lower veg shelves on right side, maybe clones and/or one plant on right... Maybe cut large hole in center and make giant shelves. Your thoughts please?

I verified the compressor isnt running, oh well. Ill test it later. Im no refrig. expert but if its something electrical I can fix. All the light/fans work....I think cutting out the plastic in the center divider is the way to go, nothing hangs on it, its just a separator. Im sure no wires or anything.... Easy job with the old sawzall!

Just tried again and the compressor runs and it does cool. Ill run it several hours tomorrow to make sure its gonna work, then all Ill need is a way to get a little fresh air into the circulation and a higher temp thermostat. I think I can just substitute a regular home thermostat like you have! Then the only thing to find out is if the fridge has the capacity to remove all the heat from the cfl's? Maybe it would be better to pipe the hot air from lights out separately like the HPS guys have to do?

Awesome Bro I would make the left(freezer)side a clone veg starter room. I would cut ventilation holes in the bottom where the angle is I would put one in each chamber.
I would put the thermostat in the main chamber as this will be the 12/12 area and the left side a 24-7 lights on this will provide you with the heat you need in the 12/12 chamber when lights off (unless your in a warm area) then no worries.


Update

I noticed this possible nanner in the last picture the rest looks great looking great though. I am going to be applying DMR to the plant on friday if it turns out to be a dreaded hermi. I have been reading for about 2 hrs and made my mind up Dutch Masters Reverse is the next step. I am expecting hermi's due to bag seeds for my next set.


As far as the thermostat goes make sure it is a 120v one not a 12v or a 240v cause i had to make three trips before i got the right one. got the 120v first then the 240 cause the guy was a dip shit and finally the standard 120v home one as my house had a old mercury switch style that has no voltage rating.

I can tell you fans off with passive intake and exhaust and 10 23w cfl's in there the temp tops out at 97. your in the danger zone there unless your adding co2.



Let me know how it turns out

Frig guy

I see Lowes has 120/24v baseboard heater thermostats, Ill get one. I'm doing a test today to see if the refrig. is working good. My big problem is going to be heat so I need cooling, see if you agree with my plan. I doubt the refrigerator has enough capacity to overpower the heat from the lights so I plan on using a muffin fan to exhaust heat from the top where it will all collect and let the normal fridge cooling circulate in the bottom. While there will be nothing separating the heat from the cool if I have fresh air intake up top it should mostly exhaust hot air. If I can keep it down around 80-85 at canopy height ill be happy. I dont need a separate cloning area so I think Im gonna make it one big area for Vegging. Im gonna stick some cfls in their today and see what happens with the fridge running. Good luck with your Hermie, I have a friend that keeps getting them, we been trying to figure out whats causing it. I have never heard of that DM reverse thing Ill check it out. Your plants are looking good....

Fridge has been running a couple of hours so I stuck 3x 32watt and 1 - 23 watt cfl's to see what happens. Ill get the thermostat and stick it in and see if it can hold it around 80.

That is a good idea but i would make the exhaust passive and the intake active if you put the intake at the bottom and the exhaust at the top it will create a natural air cycle if you do remove the divider make sure you ware a mask the insulation will make you cough for weeks (happened to me). Sounds like it is going to be great for you do you have a flower area already or are you going to be doing both in there. If i plug half of my exhaust the temps climb into the 90's so be careful. I am going to be using the cooling unit in the clone veg frig to cool the entire system. Best of luck to you my friend

Yes I already have a 5' x 3' growing area I just need a separate place for one or the other... right now I have one plant flowering which should be finished in a few weeks and 4 week old seedlings. So in a week or so I will need the space. I am growing seedlings in a cloning area I made out of a styrofoam cooler, they will outgrow it in another week. Thanks for the tip on the insualtion. Ill be getting the thermostat in a coupe of hours. I have a small muffin fan I can use to push the fresh air in and the power supply for it. where did you place your intake fan, back side door?

my intake is in the lower end back wall and my exhaust is in the upper wall i have found that to work great for a convection current keeping the temps at 72-77 depending on outside temps. let me know how this works out for you i am using computer fans for exhaust and heat they seem to handle the job just fine. sound good on the thermostat let me know is this worked for you on keeping the temps down as i was thinking of getting one for the summer time to connect where the current thermometer is for the frig control i will move the fan behind the cooling fins to create a micro ac unit inside the box I was also thinking of getting a micro dehumidifier for the summer time in the flower box i know this will help cool the air also but i would have to mount it into the side of the unit and i can decide if the would be to much chance for a light leak or i might just put it in the garage and see if that helps.

Frig

Well I wasted a couple of hours today chasing around looking for the thermostat only to realize thats not what I need, thats for heat. I need one for ac which are a little harder to come by. I tried finding one before to run my fans. I decided an old one out of a window unit would work just fine but I havent located anyone that repairs them that would have an old one they would get rid of cheap. The temp rang on the refrig. one is wrong and I dont think it can be adjusted in any way. I found a used one on ebay so I ordered it. Anyway, I started stripping stuff out of freezer so i can cut partition. There is a return refrig. line that comes back out to fron of unit. Glad I didnt go all nuts with the sawzall. I cut about an 8" hole towards the bottom and stuck a fan in the deep freeze. Now it cools better in other compartment and I think it may keep up with heat from the lights. Ill finish cutting out most of the partition now.

I think we overlooked something in the area of heating. Pretty much all frost free refrigerators have about a 500 watt heating element to defrost the cooling coils once a day. I believe this could be put on a thermostat and used as a heater. They have a limit switch to keep them from getting too hot and doing damage. My plan is to make the refrigerator circulation fan run all the time blowing across the coils, putting a thermostat on. defrost heater and a thermostat to run compressor. I am going to add a muffin to the outside to force a little fresh air in and exhaust out the top. Im going to have to figure out a way to keep the heat from coming on when compressor is running and compressor from coming on when heat is running. Probably just need a 110v relay of some sort.

Update

Hello all
The seedlings are looking great and the clones seem to be doing OK. The plants in the flowering chamber are doing great. The temps outside yesterday were in the high 50's yesterday and my temps never got above 87. I am very happy about this as i was worried that temps in the 50's would spike my temps above 90 so this was a good thing. I am going to be putting the 250 hps in on Friday night with a 4" exhaust and intake for the bulb. I am getting the kind that is not attached to the ballast so i dont over heat the room. I would like some input on the type of bulb I should get for the hps I know they make different types. What is the best one to get ?


Thanks guys


@ rollionbud I didnt want to use the defrost system on my clone veg frig as i am not a master at electricity i disconnected that the fan and lights are the only thing getting power in there and the temps seem to be great even at -20 i never got below 52.5 (unless i opened the door) I am going to be moving all the CFL's to the clone frig on friday and making them 8 of them 5000k CFL's and 2 2700k CFL's for a total of 12800 lumens for veg and a 250 hps for flower at 32000 lumen should make some great buds.

Thanks for all the input
Frig



I am using the M.G. seedling starter at 1-5-1 and they are loving it I am going to be switching to Fox Farm Ocean Forest as i have been told this is some of the best soil around. Unless you make your own.

Looking good man. If my new seedlings are as big as my flowering plant I have I think I can only get 2 plants in the fridge or maybe 4 if double stacked. Are you growing a small variety? Man if you need any help just ask. Im getting ready to start in with the sawzall, the insulation isnt a problem as its all styrofoam with plastic panel laminated to it. I dont use any nutes on my seedlings, but the potting soil does have mild nutes in it.