pepsi mini fridge grow box

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

Well...I was driving by a gas station and I saw this little fridge just sitting out there. It's one of those ones you see at a grocery store right infront of the register with the 20oz soda bottles. Anyway they had it out at the dumpster and were going to throw it away because apparently it no longer works. So I went in and talked to the manager to see if I could come by later on in the week and pick it up. He said it was alright so I'll have it sometime later this week. I'll throw up some pictures when I get it. It has two glass doors that open outward and inbetween is a nice 24" fluoro tube fixture. So that will come in handy. I plan to try and salvage the cooling fan in the bottom, but otherwise just gut the thing of all the heavy cooling equipment until it's just a shell. Then I'll install all my lights and fans and stuff. Should work out pretty nicely I think.

pics to come

 

[BSki8950]

hey let me know how that does for you ... sounds like it could work just fine

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

yeah I think so. It's one of those medium sized ones. Probably somewhere around 4.5' - 5' H x 2' W x 2' D. Not 100% sure because I just looked at it real quick. But I can definitely turn it into a very nice veg box at least. I doubt I could keep an HPS in there though because of the heat.

 

[Dizoelio]

Could use it for a super mother... some dank *** mom or something... try a 250 watt, I have one and the heat output is very little... I had a computer fan cooling it...

My plants like it and would fit perfect in there.

Sounds like a nice FREEBIE grow box. A little work and you could probably put those pro grow boxes for 2000 bucks to shame.

 

[Elephant Man]

Cool...sounds like fun. I can't wait to see pics of this thing, I would have grabbed that too...fer sure!

I look forward to throwing ideas around with you on conversion if you like.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

Diz- Hmmm that sounds promising. Depending on how big they are I might even be able to fit two of them at the top and ventilate them with a few CPU fans. The 400w I'm affraid would just burn the plants because they would grow too close to it I fear. Either way I think I'm going to have a lot of options with this thing.


Eman-Yeah definitely. You seem to be the mad scientist/engineer when it comes to all this. I found some demensions on the box when I was searching aorund the Internet for them. It measures 57" H x 36" W x 24" D. The interior demensions will be smaller of course so I'll have to take measurements then when I pick it up. Just waiting on a friend to help me out with his truck. The manufacturer has it listed as weighing 344 pounds! I think once I gut the cooling unit out of it, it should be a lot lighter though.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

Alright, well what do you guys think. I think I am going to go with a couple 250w HPS fixtures. I was thinking of using 2 cooltubes with digital ballasts that would run outside of the box. Now if I use these cooltubes I plan to use the 6" ducting fan to cool them. Would I want the air to blow through the ducting to cool the bulb down or **** the air out? The fan moves air at 250 CFM. I might even be able to use a 400w if it can draw enough heat out of the box to keep it from overheating. I need your guys' feedback for that though. If so I would probably have one 400w HPS. What do you guys think would be better? The cool thing about this refrigerator is that it has adjustable shelves. So I can keep these mounted at the very top and never have to move them up or down. I can just adjust the shelf height. I'm thinking I might be better off with the dual 250w set up. Anyone who can offer any suggestions please feel free to post.

 

[Dizoelio]

Dual 250 I think would be best. Heat wise they are easy to cool. Don't know much about 400w, but once a fan failed and highest temps top of plants saw was 90 degrees f.
Closet grow no airflow so not bad. Using sun leaves switchable pulsar light

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

I was actually thinking of using a 600w cooled by an 8" 500 CFM fan. Maybe even two. One out bring air in from the outside and push it through the fixture while the fan on the other side would exhaust air out. I'm not sure how much that would do though and if it's really worth it. I'm also wondering if putting in piece of tempered glass will help keep heat down a bit. I have 15 square feet I need to light. So that's 75000 lumens at 5000 lumens sq/ft. A 600w would do the job perfectly. Ah...so many choices on how to do this.

edit: So...I got really bored in class today and drew this up. Bummed a couple color pens from the girl next to me to color code some stuff. She thought it was "pretty" . Hopefully this visual aid helps in understanding what I'm trying to do. Any suggestions/advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Nelson Mutz]

Nice drawing, LKGPP!! Looks like a good plan; looking forward to seeing pics of your construction.

Nelson