FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey everyone,
I am wondering if anyone has tried building a highland cooling system using a mini fridge? If so, how did it work out?

Happy growing,
-@.

I saw your post after a long time,iamjacksplants!
Watch from 4:18,I guess it may help you.
https://youtu.be/wCLhhv-vqVg

Some people use chest freezers, wine fridges (they come with a built-in thermostat but are rather small) and I've even seen one person using an old retail Coke fridge for highlanders.

I've done a ton of research on this topic since I also need a way to cool my highlanders. Using chest freezers can be done and I have friends who do it, but the problem that I found with this is that if you want to get more plants, or you want to get your plants to vine, you won't have the space.

Sanders built one using an air conditioning unit:

http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/coole ... 31609.html

He took the guts out of the thing and fitted them to an enclosure he built. You could do the same thing with the guts out of a fridge. My idea for trying to do things a bit easier was just drill a hole in a mini fridge and run some tubing into it, coiled up, and back out, and seal the holes shut. Then you could pump water through the fridge to chill the water and an ultrasonic humidifier and a fan to blow the cold water around a terrarium tubed to the fridge. Just a theory I don't know how well it would work but I think it would.

Thank you all for your replies. I have seen much of the information on chest freezers and the like being converted into a grow area. This inspired the idea I'm currently working on which is to use a small dorm room refrigerator to cool a grow area. In my version, the refrigerator is not used as the grow area, but is used more like an air conditioner.

I built a new enclosure much like my old one, only larger, using wood framing and Styrofoam walls. I removed the door from the refrigerator and placed it at one end of the enclosure. It is sealed to the "wall" and is always on to provide a reserve of cold air. There is a pipe with a fan extending into the fridge and connected to a daytime nighttime thermostat. When the thermostat kicks on it pulls cold air out of the fridge into the enclosure. There is also a small fan at the bottom to push air into the fridge from the enclosure.

So far it's working, just not quite as well as I had hoped. Perhaps I should have used a small freezer instead of a refrigerator. I'm going to keep playing with it. I'm hoping to get temp drops into the low 60's. As of now it's maintaining 74 during the day and about 68 at night. That was day one.

We'll see what I can get it to do today.

Cheers,
-@.

Sorry for the poor picture quality. It's difficult to get a clear picture because of how bright the lights are. The glass has mirror film window tint on it too haha.

Happy growing,
-@.

Awesome.

Are you just blowing the air around through the empty fridge box? If you need it to get colder you might need a better heat transfer mechanism. I'm not sure how AC units do it but I would guess something involving metal fins. Also what kind of lights are those T5?

Thank you.
At the moment the fridge is empty. I'm thinking of putting some water bottles in there to maybe hold the cold a little better when the fans kick on and start blowing in air from the enclosure. The more mass you have in a refrigerator, the longer it stays cold. For instance, in a power outage a fridge full of groceries will stay cold much longer than an empty one.

Yes, there are 3 24" sunblaze t5s and one single lamp 48" t12 and one double lamp 48" t12.

I'm strongly considering extending the fixture wires from the ballasts to the tombstones so that I can place the ballasts on the outside of the lid. It's a simple affair with the t12s however I've never had a t5 apart before. Believe it or not, the t5s produce a lot more heat than the older and less efficient t12s. Every bit helps though, so that will likely be the next order of business.

Happy growing,
-@.

T5 or T5HO? T5HO puts out a lot of heat but the T5's in my experience are the coolest burning florescent ever. Been a while since I changed a T12 but regular T5 don't even hurt to touch while lit. T5HO's however will still burn your hands. Regular is 28W, HO is 54W lamp. T12s are around 40W. I think the sunblasters are all T5HO. Those get real hot but put out a ton of lumens. I have regular T5 over my heli but I use T5HO everywhere else. At half the wattage T5 is only about 60% as much light though (it's more efficient than T5HO so the HO uses double the wattage to get not quite double the light).

Ballasts do create heat, so relocating the ballasts out will help. T5 is wired exactly the same as T12. Basically just some wirenuts between the ballast and 120V and the ballast and the lamp holders.

Another thing you could do is get the whole fixtures out of the tank, say above a piece of thin glass as the lid or in the lid, into a a vented space above the glass. I don't know if that will work for you I can't really tell how your lid is made from the pic. The lamps put out a lot of heat too but a thin piece of glass will let the light through but bounce a lot of the heat out. Same idea as with these:

https://www.amazon.com/iPower-GLSETX600 ... 08&sr=1-44

If it's T5HO that would have a huge effect because those things do put out a ton of heat.

Ha! I had the output fan blowing the wrong way! Circus worker! Haha! Should work much better now that the output fan is actually blowing air out of the fridge. Unbelievable.

Yes, they are the high output t5s. They are 24" though so they're only 24 watts. They do get pretty warm, but not so hot that you don't want to touch it. Still over 98 degrees though, since it's warmer than skin.

I kind of painted myself into a corner with the lid. It would be a complete rebuild of the lid to install a glass barrier and ventilate it. I'm pretty pressed for time on this build as I have to leave town for a few months pretty much as soon as I get this thing dialed in. Definitely on the list for when I get back though. Along with swapping the mini fridge for a mini freezer.

I'm fairly confident I'll get close to the target temperature drop. It's only been on for about 2 hours and it's already dropped 10 degrees from 78 to 68. Ambient temperature in the house is 73. We'll know more in the morning but I think these are all good signs.

Cheers,
-@.

Jds wrote:I saw your post after a long time,iamjacksplants!
Watch from 4:18,I guess it may help you.
https://youtu.be/wCLhhv-vqVg

I know I'm late, but I just watched this. Brad's drop is 31 degrees, that seems a little excessive? 71 in the day to 40 at night, I thought Highlanders liked 70s in the day and 50s at night?

tannerm wrote:

Jds wrote:I saw your post after a long time,iamjacksplants!
Watch from 4:18,I guess it may help you.
https://youtu.be/wCLhhv-vqVg

I know I'm late, but I just watched this. Brad's drop is 31 degrees, that seems a little excessive? 71 in the day to 40 at night, I thought Highlanders liked 70s in the day and 50s at night?

This is for ultra-highlanders, such as N. villosa and N. lamii

Benurmanii wrote:

tannerm wrote:

Jds wrote:I saw your post after a long time,iamjacksplants!
Watch from 4:18,I guess it may help you.
https://youtu.be/wCLhhv-vqVg

I know I'm late, but I just watched this. Brad's drop is 31 degrees, that seems a little excessive? 71 in the day to 40 at night, I thought Highlanders liked 70s in the day and 50s at night?

This is for ultra-highlanders, such as N. villosa and N. lamii

Would it be possible to grow Villosa in highland conditions?

Typically no. I hate to speak in absolutes and say something will never work, but from the information I've found on N. Villosa, no one has successfully cultivated one in Highland conditions long term. In fact, this plant has a reputation for being difficult even when given ideal ultra highland conditions.

Another fun fact: the modified chest freezer growth chamber was actually developed specifically for the N. Villosa by Jeff Shafer.

https://www.google.com/search?q=highlan ... e&ie=UTF-8

The first link on this search page is a link to the pdf of his article. I couldn't figure out how to link to the article directly.

Cheers,
-@.