Johnson Controls A419 Settings

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

SixFoFalcon

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2007
Messages
498
Reaction score
12
Location
Flourtown
I've been using the Johnson Controls A419 Electronic Temperature Control for my chest freezer kegerator. The settings I've been using are as follows:

SP
(Set Point) = 40°F (although I upped it a bit when I had a stout in there)
dIF (Differential) = 2°F
ASd (Anti-Short Cycle Delay) = 3 minutes
OFS (Offset) = N/A (not using offset)

I also have the temperature probe submerged in a jar of water on the floor of the freezer. There is about 8 oz. of water in there to buffer against temporary temperature swings. I bypassed the stock freezer thermostat by wiring the leads together.

I'm curious about what settings others are using on their A419 (or any other electronic temp control for that matter.) Do share!
 
About the same, except I have mt ASd set to 12 minutes. Short cycles kill freezers. That feature is why I spent the extra $5 on the Johnson instead of the Renco.
 
I would tend to agree with the 2° being a bit close for an upright fridge/freezer, but a chest freezer (especially with the added thermal mass of the kegs) is fairly stable. Even opening the lid periodically doesn't affect the temperature too much. With an upright, you will lose cold air more readily through the gaskets, and opening the door has a big impact as a significant portion of the cold air inside gets replaced with warm air from outside very rapidly. I don't want to wait until things warm up too much before the compressor kicks on. 2° seems to give a nice easy duty cycle while keeping things right at the desired temperature. Maybe 3° or 4° would be acceptable and might benefit the life of the compressor, but beyond that you are really starting to skew the range a bit to the extremes.

I may bump up the short cycle delay just for extra insurance. As it sits now, the compressor never seems to cycle more than once an hour under normal conditions, but it seems that setting the delay to the max setting can only help and will never hurt things.
 
SixFoFalcon said:
I bypassed the stock freezer thermostat by wiring the leads together.
Why is that necessary? The stock thermostat should never be a factor @ beer temps.
 
SixFoFalcon said:
I may bump up the short cycle delay just for extra insurance. As it sits now, the compressor never seems to cycle more than once an hour under normal conditions, but it seems that setting the delay to the max setting can only help and will never hurt things.

Thats why I have mine set. 12 minutes @ 43f (or whatever) is nothing to the beer, but its nice insurance that my freezer isn't toggling on and off every 10 seconds for some stupid reason.
 
Just got one of these. Couple of questions.

I love the idea of sticking the probe in a glass of water. I agree that this should help keep a stable reading regardless of lifting the lid. I want to do this but I am afraid to put the probe in water. Do you guys put it in a plastic bag, or do you just put it right in there?

I want to ferment a pale ale at around 68. Any suggestions on what to put for setpoint, differential and ASD?

Thanks, so glad that I can finally control fermentation temps. OH will be 96 degree this weekend.
 
Just got one of these. Couple of questions.

I love the idea of sticking the probe in a glass of water. I agree that this should help keep a stable reading regardless of lifting the lid. I want to do this but I am afraid to put the probe in water. Do you guys put it in a plastic bag, or do you just put it right in there?

I want to ferment a pale ale at around 68. Any suggestions on what to put for setpoint, differential and ASD?

Thanks, so glad that I can finally control fermentation temps. OH will be 96 degree this weekend.

1. No need to submerge the probe in a container of water. Doing so will delay the controller response and widen the temperature swings. It would be better to select a higher differential setting if you want wider swings.

2. I don't know if the probe is waterproof or not, but's it's designed for us in HVAC systems. There's nothing in the users manual about this one way or the other.

3. I use a 5 degree F differential setting and the max 12 min ASD setting with good results for my serving freezer and my fermentation chambers.

4. The set point when fermenting depends on what stage the fermentation is in. The fermenting yeast will generate a lot of heat initially, so it's best to set the controller considerably lower than your desired fermentation temp for the first few days. I usually set mine 10 degrees low and gradually raise the temp as the initial vigorous fermentation slows. I've found it's best to this right from the start as once the ferment gets going, it's difficult to cool it down fast enough.

5. IMO, it's best to monitor the fermenter temps with a separate thermometer. I use an ordinary, cheap indoor/outdoor type digital thermometer. I attach the thermometer probe to the side of the fermenter and cover it with some insulation I use the bubble foil stuff, but just about anything will work for this. A piece of foam rubber would work as well. Let the thermometer govern and adjust the controller set point accordingly. Mount the controller probe so that it is in the air and not touching the walls of the freezer or any cooling coils. I use a fan to keep the air circulating in my freezer for more uniform temps. A computer type muffin fan works well for this.

If you like the probe in the water bottle idea, I suggest you give it a try and make up your own mind. I tried it and it did not work well at all for me. Whichever way you do it, I would still recommend mointoring the fermenter with a separate thermometer of some kind. IMO, it does not work well to use the controller for both controlling the compressor and to monitor the fermenter temps. It's two different functions requiring two separate temperature sensors. Fortunately, it's very easy to test the various configurations. The fan was a huge improvement though and a necessity for a freezer IMO.
 
Interesting...

I don't have a digital thermometer with a probe, but I do have the LCD stickers on my fermenters. They seem pretty good with around 1 degree of wiggle room in my experience.

I tried the probe in water overnight, but my temp according to the controller was 60 when I woke up this morning. My setpoint is 70 so I thought this was a huge swing.

I'll try just letting the probe sit in the air away from the walls and see how it goes. I like the idea of the fan, I have a stir plate fashioned out of a tupperware container and a computer fan, so I can open it up and use it for circulation.

tomorrow is brewday and I would like to get this stabilized.

I also like the idea of keeping initial fermentation temps lower due to the heat generated by the fermentation.

Thanks for all the info.
 
The LCD thermometers should work OK. You said the temp according to the controller was at 60F this morning. One problem with the chest feezers if you do not have a fan installed, is that there can be a huge difference between the air temp near the top vs near the bottom. This can be as much as 10-15 degrees. As you can imagine, the temp on the controller display will depend on where in the freezer you have the probe located. It will also depend on where in the on/off cycle it is at the moment. With a probe in a container of water, the cycle could be very long. It will take a long time to cool the water container and also a long time for it to warm up enough to trigger the controller. This will result in the large temp swings for sure. The fan will help with the warm/cold air stratification problem, but you will still want to monitor the fermenter temperature separately. IOW, don't focus on the air temperature, as it will swing a lot and all you are doing is spot checking the temp and that won't tell you much as it won't be the actual temp of the fermenting wort.
 
I duct tape a thawed ice pack to the fermenter then put the probe in between glass and pack. Works great for getting an accurate temp of wort regardless of fermenting stage 1 deg dif.
 
I am using the A419 with a fridge. I cannot figure if i want the set point to cut in or to cut out? If I want the temp at say 48F, I assume i would want cut in? The compressor will stay off until that temp and then controller will turn on? Or do I have it backwards? I'm so confused! :)
 
I am using the A419 with a fridge. I cannot figure if i want the set point to cut in or to cut out? If I want the temp at say 48F, I assume i would want cut in? The compressor will stay off until that temp and then controller will turn on? Or do I have it backwards? I'm so confused! :)

Whether you have it set to cut in or cut out at the set point doesn't make any difference except that the offset will be much different. The offset being what the beer temp actually is vs. what you set the controller to. The differential setting will affect the actual temp as well. I prefer to measure the beer temp and if it's too warm I turn the controller down and up if it's too cold.
 
Since my original posts, I've changed my settings a bit, due in part to Catt22's suggestions.

Currently I have the ASd (anti-short cycle delay) bumped up to 10 minutes. This comes in handy when I'm doing lots of keg swapping & cleaning, or when I have parties and people are lifting the lid to get bottled beers, look inside, etc. My chest freezer isn't getting any younger, and anything I can do to ease the load on the compressor will benefit me in the long run.

I omitted the water vessel for the probe. I was cleaning everything out and replacing old hoses one day, and I decided I was sick of the probe flopping around all over the place and getting in the way whenever I move things around in there. Also, when you think about it, it's unnecessary and just complicates things. Once you allow everything to settle in, and you have a couple kegs in there cooled to serving/aging temps, the only thing that's changing when you open the lid is that the air inside is warming up. So it makes sense to only run the compressor enough to cool the air back down, and in doing so, the beer stays at the right temp. In that light, the probe should really just be sampling the inside air temp.

Even adding a full warm keg to the mix doesn't change this much, as you just want to allow the existing cold kegs to stay where they are, and only run the compressor enough to keep the inside air from drifting up in temperature. By the next day, everything is at equilibrium and your older kegs of beer never changed temperature more than a few degrees. With the water vessel acting as a "buffer", you are instead allowing the air to warm up, and the liquids inside the water vessel and kegs to warm up a couple degrees before the compressor kicks in and cools things down. You end up with a "hysteresis" loop where the compressor is coming on later than you want, and shutting off later than you want, resulting in wider temperature changes. Better to use the ASd to prevent the rapid on/off of the compressor when opening/closing the lid frequently and allow the thermostat to respond more quickly in normal situations so the inside air temp stays stable.

I still have 0 as the offset, and 2 degrees F as the differential. I've been serving my beers warmer (48-52), which is more appropriate for many styles, and also allows me to cure meats in there. :D
 
Hey SixFoFalcon,

FYI, I've been running some tests just for the heck of it. The first run I had the controller probe submerged in a one gallon jug of water. This resulted in a 3.4 *deg temp swing also measured in that same one gallon jug. The temp swing should be less in a full keg or a keg containing more than one gallon. Fan ran continuously. The differential was set to 1*F and the Asd to 12 minutes. The cycles were much longer than 12 minutes, so the Asd was never activated even when the freezer was opened.

The second test was run with the controller probe in the air stream of the continuously running fan and the differential set to 1*F. The temp swing in the one gallon jug was very small with this configuration, only 0.3*F. Again, kegs with a larger volume should vary even less. I set the Asd to 5 minutes, but it only comes into play if I open the freezer lid before the time has lapsed since the last cycle.

Next two tests will be similar with actively fermenting beer. I can log min/max temperatures, but I have no way to keep track of the compressor run times. I do have a Kill-A-Watt meter hooked up. The freeszer is using very little power. Only 3.04 kwh over the past 109 hours. That's only about 5-10 cents per day depending on what the power costs are in your area.

I'll post an update when I get around to running the tests with a fermenter.
 
Good stuff... I'm glad this thread is still alive. :rockin:

I didn't mention it, but I too have added a fan to circulate the inside air. This was mainly to even out the humidity (I was dry curing several pounds of pancetta and a 22# ham) and to increase the efficiency of the desiccant that I have been using to reduce the condensation/frost accumulation on the walls of the freezer. I think I will eventually replace the office desk fan I've been using with a high-CFM 4" "PC case" type fan that will force air through a PVC tube where I can stick cartridges of desiccant.

At any rate, a little air circulation inside the freezer should really minimize any thermostat lag and eliminate any stratification of the air, so it's a win-win for my dual-purpose kegerator/curing chamber.

I look forward to your updates, as I'm really getting interested in lagering now that I have more room inside the freezer. (The meats have been moved off to a basement closet to finish aging.) :mug:
 
Since my original posts, I've changed my settings a bit, due in part to Catt22's suggestions.

Currently I have the ASd (anti-short cycle delay) bumped up to 10 minutes. This comes in handy when I'm doing lots of keg swapping & cleaning, or when I have parties and people are lifting the lid to get bottled beers, look inside, etc. My chest freezer isn't getting any younger, and anything I can do to ease the load on the compressor will benefit me in the long run.

I omitted the water vessel for the probe. I was cleaning everything out and replacing old hoses one day, and I decided I was sick of the probe flopping around all over the place and getting in the way whenever I move things around in there. Also, when you think about it, it's unnecessary and just complicates things. Once you allow everything to settle in, and you have a couple kegs in there cooled to serving/aging temps, the only thing that's changing when you open the lid is that the air inside is warming up. So it makes sense to only run the compressor enough to cool the air back down, and in doing so, the beer stays at the right temp. In that light, the probe should really just be sampling the inside air temp.

Even adding a full warm keg to the mix doesn't change this much, as you just want to allow the existing cold kegs to stay where they are, and only run the compressor enough to keep the inside air from drifting up in temperature. By the next day, everything is at equilibrium and your older kegs of beer never changed temperature more than a few degrees. With the water vessel acting as a "buffer", you are instead allowing the air to warm up, and the liquids inside the water vessel and kegs to warm up a couple degrees before the compressor kicks in and cools things down. You end up with a "hysteresis" loop where the compressor is coming on later than you want, and shutting off later than you want, resulting in wider temperature changes. Better to use the ASd to prevent the rapid on/off of the compressor when opening/closing the lid frequently and allow the thermostat to respond more quickly in normal situations so the inside air temp stays stable.

I still have 0 as the offset, and 2 degrees F as the differential. I've been serving my beers warmer (48-52), which is more appropriate for many styles, and also allows me to cure meats in there. :D

Your logic is a bit flawed. Having the probe in air will result in much more frequent cycling of the compressor for a given temp variance. The "probe in air" can still maintain a tighter temp variance of the beer, even with a larger temp diff, but it is harder to figure out the offset caused by the avg temp realized, which is what all passive bodies will average out to. The temp diff needs to increase when the probe is to "in air", to protect against frequent cycling, and decrease when "in water" to prevent increased temp swings.

If the lid is opened, the air will warm up, but the beer won't. Given time, the beer will lower the air temp easily without gaining any significant temp. Adding warm kegs, or controlling ferments (or raising orchids or curing meats) complicates matters. Something has to give.

For chilling a warm keg- fastest: probe in/on the warm keg; easiest on the compressor- probe on an existing keg. There are several intermediate strategies for balancing chilling speed vs. compressor life.

For controlling ferm temps- on the vessel wall is the majority opinion.

For controlling finished beer- in/on something small enough to prevent the smallest vessel from freezing or overcarbing, and larg enough to prevent frequent cycling.

With the probe in/on a liquid filled vessel, the compressor comes on for longer periods less frequently. Any vessel smaller than the probe vessel will get colder than the probe vessel, however. The smaller the probe vessel, the more frequent the cycling is, and vice versa. Something smaller than a keg and bigger than a bottle is a good range. The bottles just need to kept from freezing, and partial kegs from overcarbing.

The ASD is only a safety feature. It should not be considered as part of normal control strategy.
 
At any rate, a little air circulation inside the freezer should really minimize any thermostat lag and eliminate any stratification of the air, so it's a win-win for my dual-purpose kegerator/curing chamber.
You have minimized lag (or increased effective thermal response) of the sensor, but may have also increased cycling. It is hard to know exactly without testing, or a bunch of modeling. The air movement will increase the response of the sensor, but there are other variables. When the freezer is chilling, the existing thermal mass in the keezer will also be moderating/warming the air during that phase. During the "off" phase, the air movement around the keg will also moderate the air temps by chilling the air. For chilling a warm keg, the fan will increase cycling, but will get the keg to temp faster.

Either way, you could do your compressor a big favor by putting the probe in/on a vessel. The fan is a good idea either way since temps stratify so easily in a chest freezer.
 
Whether you have it set to cut in or cut out at the set point doesn't make any difference except that the offset will be much different. The offset being what the beer temp actually is vs. what you set the controller to. The differential setting will affect the actual temp as well. I prefer to measure the beer temp and if it's too warm I turn the controller down and up if it's too cold.

Differential is the temp range to maintain- Setpoint + Diff= compressor on, or on some controller setpoint + 1/2diff = on, setpoint -1/2diff = off.

Offset can be used to calibrate the sensor, or compensate for the temp difference between the sensor temp and the body being controlled temp. This is just a convenience feature, it just combines the offset with the setpoint.
 
My chest freezer isn't getting any younger, and anything I can do to ease the load on the compressor will benefit me in the long run.

With the water vessel acting as a "buffer", you are instead allowing the air to warm up, and the liquids inside the water vessel and kegs to warm up a couple degrees before the compressor kicks in and cools things down. You end up with a "hysteresis" loop where the compressor is coming on later than you want, and shutting off later than you want, resulting in wider temperature changes.
If the temp diff is set to 1F, the compressor will come on when that is reached, and turn off when the setpoint is reached. This is not "later", since the air temp is irrelevant. There will be some overshoot after shutoff due to relative thermal inertia of the keezer (freon, walls, air, etc) to the mass of the keezer contents. This is usually fairly small, ~1F, and less for larger vessels and higher total mass of the contents. There is also some delay/overshoot caused by the stratification within the vessel if a thermowell is used. That is why taping to the outside of the vessel is popular. It serves to prevent overshoot by being partially influenced by the keezer air, while still accurately measuring the vessel internal temp.

Better to use the ASd to prevent the rapid on/off of the compressor when opening/closing the lid frequently and allow the thermostat to respond more quickly in normal situations so the inside air temp stays stable.

The ASD is specifically to prevent compressor "hot starting" when there is still pressure in the high lines. It is not a device/parameter to reduce cycling.
Instantaneous air temps are not important, only the avg. Faster response + probe in air = more frequent cycling than is necessary.


I still have 0 as the offset, and 2 degrees F as the differential. I've been serving my beers warmer (48-52), which is more appropriate for many styles, and also allows me to cure meats in there. :D
If all you need is a 2-3F range, that can be accomplished with a 1F diff and the probe in/on a mid sized vessel, and your compressor cycling will be reduce dramatically. You could also do the same thing (reduce cycling) with the probe in air, increasing the diff to 4-6F, and determining the offset (setpoint - avg). Either way, the beer temps could still be maintained within a 2-3F range, or less.
 
I'm not sure I should go any deeper into an "in theory..." discussion on this, since there are so many variables involved. What I will say is that from my experiences over the past couple of years, I like it better without the liquid vessel for the probe. It may just be due to the way I'm using the setup (the frequency & duration of lid opening, adding warm kegs, dispensing bottled beers, curing meats, etc.) but nothing you have presented here immediately compels me to change the way I have my particular system configured.

What sort of setup are you running? Maybe that will help put your comments into context so I can understand better.
 
Hey SixFoFalcon,

FYI, I've been running some tests just for the heck of it. The first run I had the controller probe submerged in a one gallon jug of water. This resulted in a 3.4 *deg temp swing also measured in that same one gallon jug. The temp swing should be less in a full keg or a keg containing more than one gallon. Fan ran continuously. The differential was set to 1*F and the Asd to 12 minutes. The cycles were much longer than 12 minutes, so the Asd was never activated even when the freezer was opened.

The second test was run with the controller probe in the air stream of the continuously running fan and the differential set to 1*F. The temp swing in the one gallon jug was very small with this configuration, only 0.3*F. Again, kegs with a larger volume should vary even less. I set the Asd to 5 minutes, but it only comes into play if I open the freezer lid before the time has lapsed since the last cycle.

Next two tests will be similar with actively fermenting beer. I can log min/max temperatures, but I have no way to keep track of the compressor run times. I do have a Kill-A-Watt meter hooked up. The freeszer is using very little power. Only 3.04 kwh over the past 109 hours. That's only about 5-10 cents per day depending on what the power costs are in your area.

I'll post an update when I get around to running the tests with a fermenter.

The critical data missing from this is compressor cycling. The total on time will be very similar for any probe placement since a fixed amount of heat is being removed. The number of cycles is the big issue, since that is what is likely to kill the compressor.
 
I'm not sure I should go any deeper into an "in theory..." discussion on this, since there are so many variables involved. What I will say is that from my experiences over the past couple of years, I like it better without the liquid vessel for the probe. It may just be due to the way I'm using the setup (the frequency & duration of lid opening, adding warm kegs, dispensing bottled beers, curing meats, etc.) but nothing you have presented here immediately compels me to change the way I have my particular system configured.

What sort of setup are you running? Maybe that will help put your comments into context so I can understand better.

These are not theories. These are the Laws of Thermodynamics. If you are experiencing something that appears to defy them, an experiment can help find out why, but it isn't going to change them.

I don't have any data logging, or min/max sensors, but I had it out with Catt22 in another thread with a guy who did have logging stuff. Putting the probe in a vessel, he reduced cycling by 50% with less than a 1F variance increase due to overshoot, and that was in an 8oz glass. It would be less overshoot with the probe in a larger vessel, and less cycling.

You are cycling your compressor much more than is necessary, even to maintain the temp variance you currently have. You can place the probe where ever you like, but it contradicts the peppering of the "I love my compressor" statements scattered throughout the post. No one knowledgeable recommends setting a temp diff of 2F with the probe in air.

It also doesn't change that instantaneous air temp is irrelevant, and only avg air temp is relevant when controlling the air to control beer temps (as long as the beer temp stays within variance limits, that is). The avg will not (usually) be the setpoint, and that is what offset can be used for, or the setpoint adjusted to account for it.

For fermenting, putting the probe on/in the vessel is the only "hands off" way to control ferm temps accurately with a typical controller. Putting the probe in air for ferm'ing requires continually adjusting the controller setpoint to account for the varying difference between air and wort temps during the exothermic fermentation phase. This is due to using a secondary indicator, the surrounding air, as the controlled medium.

If you are doing multiple uses in a single keezer, it is very difficult to have a single probe placement without some compromises. For balancing priorities, or choosing a optimized placement for a scenario, it helps to understand what forces are at work.
 
SixFoFalcon said:
Interesting. Anyone else care to chime in?

Yeah sure, I use a thermometer. :p

In all seriousness I just bought a JC A419ABG-3C and am just trying to figure out how I should set the damn thing (jumper config, etc)... Didn't mean to stumble upon a thermodynamic meeting of the minds. It's like James Prescott Joule & Baron Kelvin are locked in a room debating what the best flavor of ice cream is while everyone else went off to Rudolf Clausius's crib for the keg party.

Hey - you asked for a chime-in; you got it. :)
 
You could print out the instruction manual for the A419, and take it over to the keg party.

The discussion was more about sensor placement than a specific controller. I don't own an A419, but have seen many conflicting posts about how to set the jumpers, parameters, etc. I would cross reference a few threads on it to get a consensus, or just RTFM myself to know for sure (which I just did, and took me less time than it probably took you to write your post).
 
Looking for information as How To set my A419 for cooling (is the DEFAULT factory jumper settings for Cooling?)
The JC PDF does not provide the homebrewer much guidance, which is the wonderful aspect of this forum.

I found the following, reading reviews on Amazon. What are your thoughts on these recommended settings?

SP: setpoint (for my purpose 67) the temperature you want the thing to try and maintain.

dIF: differential (1 to 30F, default = 5) I leave at default, this is the point + or - from the setpoint temp (so 62 to 73 in my case.

ASd: anti-short cycle delay (0 to 12 minutes, default = 1) I set to 12 minutes, just to put the least amount of stress on the compressor.
 
Your setting does make more sense: set the differential at two degrees rather than five. Am I correct about the Factory jumpers set for cooling?

What do you think about placing the probe in a glass, 8 oz. of water for a more accurate reading or doesn't it matter?
 
garysherck said:
Your setting does make more sense: set the differential at two degrees rather than five. Am I correct about the Factory jumpers set for cooling?

What do you think about placing the probe in a glass, 8 oz. of water for a more accurate reading or doesn't it matter?

The factory setting is to kick on to cool to a set temperature. I tape my probe tithe side of the Carboy so I know it's controlling my beer temp. Also have fermometers on the carboys for added assurance that both are working properly (or working the same at least) in GA during the summer the chest freezer kicks on about once an hour for 5 minutes for the first couple of days and then once every 3 hours or so for the rest.
 
I'm going to jump in here with a question I'm hoping someone can help with. I'm trying to do a ferment chamber with a new 7 Cf GE chest freezer and johnson control A419 control unit.

The issue I'm having is that even though the control turns on and off at the correct temperatures, the freezer continues to cool even after the control unit shuts it off, so the temp in the chamber is drooping 10 degrees cooler than what I want and sitting there for quite a while. Has anybody else had this problem?
 
If the freezer is empty, try it with some thermal mass and check to see if the liquid temperature is close to where you want it. There will probably be some residual cooling from the cold evaporator coil after the compressor shuts off. I think someone already mentioned a fan to help move the air around inside - I put one in mine and it seems to help.
 
10 deg over-shoot sounds like a lot. I was only getting 2-3.

I had a 5-6 cu. ft. freezer with the A419. I Placed the probe in a small glass of water. The first time you cool, it will over-shoot a long way, as the water will cool more slowly than the air. After a day or so, they will equilibrate, and as long as you have your differential 2-3 deg, the freezer will cycle on/off reasonably consistent.

Another trick I used to get more precise control of temp actually in carboy was to tape an ice pack (gel-type in foil package) to the carboy with the probe between the glass and ice pack.
 
How is everyone powering their fans inside the chest freezer? Just running the power cable outside the top (between the lid and the freezer)?

Had never thought about stratification. Smart solution!
 
Yeah, mine is just a cord running in to power the fan when the 'stat calls for cooling. It's run under the lid gasket along with the temperature probe wire. I know this isn't the ideal way and, if I ever get around to building a collar on the freezer, I'll do a proper feed-through arrangement for all wires, hoses, etc..... After you live with a Ghetto set-up for awhile, ya kinda get used to it! :D

Hmmm...... Maybe a 10x50 old house trailer converted into a brewery is in order!
 
I want my chest freezer set to 40. I do not know if I need to have the jumpers inside the control set to "Cut-In" or "Cut-Out". What I want is for it to cool down to 40 and shut off.
 
Back
Top