Originally Posted by txinga

I guess the real question is can you run two freezers of of one 15 amp power cable?
Thanks,

Tx

Originally Posted by seedubxj

If one were to use this type of controller combined with a chest freezer for cooling and a brew belt for heating and taping the insulated probe to a carboy, where would be the best location for the belt and for the probe? I wouldn't want to get a false reading due to the carboy material (glass or plastic) heating up due to the brew belt. Any thoughts?

Originally Posted by jerryk

What are your thoughts on putting the temp probe inside a white labs yeast bottle with water or alcohol instead of taping it to the side of the fermenter? I think it might let the probe sit in just enough of a mass to cut down on cycling with out having to tape it to what ever you are fermenting in.

Originally Posted by zachattack

That works fine for a kegerator, but isn't ideal for actively fermenting beer. Since the temperature in the fermenter can be 5-7+ degrees above ambient, that's where you want to get your reading. Tape it to the side of the carboy.

Originally Posted by android

i'll have to measure it when i get home, but either 7x5x3 or 8x6x3. depending on where you mount the controller, it's a tight fit between the back of the box and the wiring.

Originally Posted by android

i was excited about the prospect of this temp controller, so i got one from ebay and put the whole thing in a project box from radio shack. one plug is switched for heating and the other for cooling. i have yet to build up my fermentation chamber that i'll use this on, but preliminary tests confirmed that the unit worked great. there is a 0.3 deg C differential on this thing, so it is pretty accurate and easy to set. i used a 14 gauge extension cord for all the wires. it does read in celcius, but that's OK by me.

all of the parts:


did some sloppy cut outs and wired it up:


power cord and sensor gives plenty of slack:


close up of the temp controller:


powered up:


my wiring diagram (sloppy also). i only used one wire nut to join the hot wires as you can see in one of the pics above. also, very important to break off the jumper tab on the hot side so you can control each outlet independently.