Any A/C techs or smart people here?

I would like to prepare for the summer now, and I have a small closet that I need to cool by 10-15 degrees. I have a dehumidifier, and I was thinking how great it would be if I could run the cold coils in to the closet, blow a fan across them and have the hot compressor / electronics on the outside.

So the problem is that I need to disconnect the small (1/4"?) copper tubing and re-bend or maybe even get some new tubing and re-work it to set this up.

I can handle most of it - cutting, soldering, etc. HOWEVER, it is the refrigerant part I do not know what to do.

I am sure there is some health or environmental risk to disconnecting the tubes, but then how do I charge it back up and with what?

Or, maybe this is just out of the scope of what I can do myself? I was just hoping to save money.

that sounds like more hassle than its worth, would it not be easier designing a box around the area with a fan and pumping the cool air in?

Re-charging it with Freon takes special equipment from what I know. I think you would have to the copper tubing bent from a company too.

you need an e.p.a license to work with refrigerants, they can burn you in a second if you don't know how to use them.
my suggestion, ductlessdepot.net get a minisplit a/c, comes with everything to hook up yourself.

the mini split looks cool, but a little out of my budget, it looks like they run $400+?

I might be able to swallow $200 if I had to, but ideally less.

The problem I have ultimately comes down to ambient temperature - my grow cabinet is in a garage, so during the summer it gets above 80 in there - I think it hit 90 a few times.

So I am not sure that I can rely on air circulation alone, I think I need some sort of additional cooling source - A/C, water chill, ?

It is just a small cabinet, approximately 4'x3'x6'

I am able to keep the temperature good in the winter by adding heat, and I do pretty well spring and fall as long as it is not too hot by running vent / exhaust. I just need to figure out what to do during those hot weeks / days.

One thought I had was turning off some or even all the lights for brief periods, letting things cool down, then turn them back on, but what impact will that have on the plants?

Look at what jsgamber did on this one. He modified it for air in a cabinet. Hope this helps
DIY= Do It Yourself Water Chiller that works!

hey, i work on Ac's for my job and that sounds like a lot of work. moving the coil will effect how the rest of the house is cooled. ill try to keep it short, yes it theory it can work, but is a lot of hassle if you don't know what your doing. i know what im doing and i wouldn't recommend doing it.

you can easily create an opening in your box and let the A/C blow air in. thats what i do with my dehumidifier in summer because its motor heats up my small cab

zem is right on here, just get a window air conditioner and install it as you would on your house, with the (cool) air going into the tent, hot air going into the garage. Sure seems like it would work, gonna cost to run but should work.