UpCycle It - R2I - #1 - Introduction

UpCycle IT – R2I INDEX:

UpCycle It - R2I –Refrigerator 2 Incubator

Refrigerators, everyone loves them, they keep your food cold, extend the life span of meats and dairy and when they stop working, take up a LOT of space.

Here in the U.S. you have to pay a lot of extra charges to have refrigerators properly disposed of.  Undoubtedly one of the reasons you will see them laying in vacant lots and piled outside of buildings in low income areas.  No one wants to deal with them after they can no longer keep items cold.

I found an online news article that discussed how second hand refrigerators being imported into Ghana from the European Union reached such a critical mass point that on January 1st 2013 they banned the import of all used refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners.

While newer model systems avoid the old issues of chlorofluorocarbons (cfc) which can damage the ozone layer they can still provide quite an impact on land fills and similar disposal options due to their size and quantity.

As such I am taking an old mini-fridge and using it as the main part of my Upcycle project!  Something that later can be expanded to full sized items easily by anyone desiring to do so.  (In fact I also have another plan to take a full size standing freezer with glass door and Upcycle that in the future but I was unable to find a donor freezer and so that will wait for a future blog posting to Element 14.)

Here is the basis of my project getting a much needed cleaning prior to tear down.

Here is the door removed, inside compartments of door removed and beginning of inside tear down.  The fridge is actually upside down here since I was cleaning up parts to get ready for a professional to remove the compressor and cooling systems.

The Fridge ready to start having items added and tested for the R2I project!

The rear showing the compressor and various parts removed and a nice open space in the back.

Here is Blue Dude showing us the next piece of the project, eggs!

My idea is to take the Challenger Kit comprising of the Intel Edison Kit for Arduino, Intel Edison Breakout Board, Arduino Protoshield R3, the Grove Starter Kit for Arduino, an AC/DC power supply and a USB cable.  Add my stripped and cleaned up mini-fridge, a heating element (looking at heating tape), a custom designed egg turning assembly and of course a dozen or more fertilized chicken eggs to have an Incubator.

I want to use as many of the Grove Starter Kit pieces as possible in the incubator (such as the mini-servo, led lights, relays, temperature sensor) but believe I will need to add a high quality humidity sensor as well since I am not seeing such an item reflected in the literature on the kit.

Here is a general idea with the Heat tape along the back.  The custom egg holder/rotator going from side to side and there being a divider across the center of the fridge to allow heat to be kept at the top side with a possible use of the bottom for holding the kit.

In addition I will cut a viewing window in the door and replace with plexi-glass to allow us to monitor everything without having to open the device and upset the temperature/humidity.

The Intel Edison Kit looks to be a great option for implementing all of my desired features and I look forward to taking this to the next step and blogging as we create this Upcycle Project.  Ultimately to take it through the incubation of chicken eggs to show success!  I see great video opportunities!