can a small car fridge be used as a cooling unit

[ganja zulu]

i have a grow room thats 2 foot by 4foot by 6.5 foot high. Im planning to use a 250 watt hid lamp i would like to know im probably not the first to think of this but i have a small fridge at my house that i don use a lil bar fridge type. Is there any way to convert that to cool the grow area because i fear that the hid lamp will make use room way too hot. Anyone know how or got any ideas it would help

 

[ganja zulu]

i meant bar fridge not car fridge

 

[MisterPink]

The bar fridge won't work. It has been engineered to keep 1.5 - 2 sq/ft cold, not 52 sq/ft with an active heat source. A small "window-shaker" A/C unit would work a lot better.
I used to use an aluminum radiator with a box-fan behind it to cool one of my larger rooms. Cold tap water was run thru the rad, effectively cooling any air pushed thru by the fan. It also served double-duty as a de-humidifier as any moisture in the air would condense on the rad and then run off into a troth/bucket. The water flow was controlled by a 120V solenoid valve, and both it and the fan were controlled by a thermostatic fan switch. Something on a smaller scale (like a heater-core) might work for your application.

 

[tip top toker]

fridges are designed to keep things cool, not chill them from warm, constantly, the fridge will jsut burn out on you rather faster than expected

 

[dingbang]

sounds like more work than necessary and you have more square footage than your lamp can provide adequate light for.

a 400 watt light would better suit that grow area per square foot but more details are needed to help you out further.

do you already have a 250? is a 400 an option? what type of odor control (if any) are you planning for? can you vent exhausted heat elsewhere?

 

[ganja zulu]

ya sorry about being vague i was really stoned while thinkin of the idea. smell is not an issue as its in a workshop for cars so it smells heavy of petrol. The heat can be vented but only out about a 20 cm piece of ducting but it vents about 30cm straight to the outside. As 4 the light i don have the 250watt yet but im only using half the grow area so really my plants will only cover a small area and there will be fewer of them. But in that confined space i think the heat from 400watt will be too much.any other info u need? Any tips would be great.

 

[captain insaneo]

cool tube or air cooled hood, is the only way. that is all i can say... there are water cooled ones too but the eat up the lumens like tic tacks.

 

[ganja zulu]

ya unfortunately we don get those cool tubes in my area but we also don get cops with infared cameras. And the space around the property is massive so smell and vents are not the issue but ideally i don want to give it away by putting to much venting to the outside as the person who i sharing the warehouse wit don know and wouldn want it there but i do have a private office and thats where the took cabinet is that im growing inside. The roof is less than 10cm away from it and it will vent straight out to the air but i don want a huge pipe there really so i figure i can hide a 20cm vent by putting a box around it and make it look like just a normal cardboard box on the cabinet

 

[dingbang]

The 250 sounds perfect for what you are trying to do. Heat is not much of an issue with smaller HID's if you keep your ballast out of your cabinet (maybe on top in the box hiding with your exhaust) and plenty of air circulation with a decent exhaust. You will need at least a 130CFM exhaust fan, a fan blowing on your lamp constantly and maybe another pulling air in. A cool tube would be great but I don't think its absolutely necessary if ambient room temps aren't too high.

Here are a few DIY cooltube ideas that may help you out. 1 2

I made mine out of a hurricane lantern, some 4' ducting, a 120mm 135cfm pc fan and some metal ducting tape.
Hope this helps out a little and good luck.

 

[ganja zulu]

could cfls be used effectively to grow during the veg stage and then use a hps to flower or would it dramatically affect yeld reason being is that the light will only be on 12/12 thereby reducing temps

 

[dingbang]

could cfls be used effectively to grow during the veg stage and then use a hps to flower

Yes.

or would it dramatically affect yeld reason being is that the light will only be on 12/12 thereby reducing temps

not sure what you mean but a lot of people veg with cfl's 18/6 or 20/4 and then flower with hps 12/12.

 

[DLC420]

yeah, the fridge wouldnt work at all haha, go to walmart. and ask them back towards the like, auto department, (or at mine it is anyways) for a small fan, they sell thme there, like a little desk fan, and it works great, me and my grow partner have one in our grow room, and its a fairly big closet, and it cools it to the perfect temp and the fan only costs 5-10 bucks goodluck with your grow and your cooling source search

 

[ganja zulu]

Yes.


not sure what you mean but a lot of people veg with cfl's 18/6 or 20/4 and then flower with hps 12/12.

what i mean is if i used cfls to veg and hps to flower would i get less bud than if i used a hm for veg and a hps for buds.. cos if i use cfls 20/4 it won matter they don get hot and if i used hps 12/12 they it should keep the temps lower...?
if i buy the 250 watt can anyone tell me if the parabolic bird wing reflector is better or those square ones?? if i get the square one i was thinkin of mounting perspex on the front and drilling holes in it and putting ducting out the back of the reflector with a fan on to vent the air directly out...?
and then another fan and more ducting running the length of the grow room pulling fresh air in with holes in the ducting every 10 cm or so to spread the air flow easily and evenly..

 

[dingbang]

what i mean is if i used cfls to veg and hps to flower would i get less bud than if i used a hm for veg and a hps for buds.. cos if i use cfls 20/4 it won matter they don get hot and if i used hps 12/12 they it should keep the temps lower...?
if i buy the 250 watt can anyone tell me if the parabolic bird wing reflector is better or those square ones?? if i get the square one i was thinkin of mounting perspex on the front and drilling holes in it and putting ducting out the back of the reflector with a fan on to vent the air directly out...?
and then another fan and more ducting running the length of the grow room pulling fresh air in with holes in the ducting every 10 cm or so to spread the air flow easily and evenly..

A common misconception about CFL's is that they don't get hot and that's simply not true. They may not be as hot a HID's but they still give off significant heat. They disperse less heat in a wider area do to having to use multiple lamps and it can at times be harder to manage that heat. If you have just one lamp and all of the air exchange for your grow space passes along that one lamp then managing heat is not an issue.

I would get a switchable digital ballast that can run metal halide and hps and make an open ended cool tube. When its time to flower you simply change one single bulb. If your veg area and flower area were separate then I might use CFL's for veg but the simplest solution is a switchable ballast I believe.

 

[skunky33]

A fridge has to makes heat to make the cold. You don't notice the heat because it only runs for a few minutes an hour to keep the space inside cold. To make a huge space cold using duct work or pipes coming from the fridge would just burn it out.