Parts for Son Of Fermentation

Good day

Can anyone recommend specific fan, thermostat, and DC adapter for the project

Thank you

I think people might be all over the place on this one since they get parts from so many different places and piece them together. I would think the easiest to do is something like this: http://www.coolerguys.com/840556090885.html. I just built a 'son of' last week and lucked out because a friend of mine own a computer repair shop and he gave me a old pc temp controller, fan and power supply for free. Just a piece of advice. If you have not yet bought your insulation board go to your local Lowes, Menard, Home Depot, whatever and look for a sheet that is dinged up. If it's serviceable for your project ask for a discount. I picked up a sheet of 2" board for 1/2 off. With the free stuff from my friend and 1/2 of the carcass the total cost of my build...$15.22. Best of all the whole thing work divinely!

I can't find the foam sheets? Went to Home Depot and Lowes. Looked, couldn't find them, asked the employees and they looked at me like I was stupid. I am sure I saw them in these stores up in NC, but where I'm at now, they don't seem to be a stocked item?

I got the r-5 foil backed 1" sheet, worked well but will be buying another to build a second layer on. as far as the fan, i used a 4" personal fan from walmart. it was only 6 bucks and I have is plugged directly to my temp controller. Works great has kept my beer at 66 F for 2 weeks, have to change the jugs (i use 2 at a time) every 36 hours because its summer in florida and my house gets damn near 80 in the afternoon.

I think with another layer I could get 48 hours + out of two jugs. I am going to be encasing it in plywood and painting/staining it as well so it looks better.

My local home depot does have the insulation under cornings I think. I just asked for some polystyrene. They had it in .25, .50, 1, and 1.75

DickyBenfield said:

I can't find the foam sheets? Went to Home Depot and Lowes. Looked, couldn't find them, asked the employees and they looked at me like I was stupid. I am sure I saw them in these stores up in NC, but where I'm at now, they don't seem to be a stocked item?

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I used his site as well to locate and call in my area. I think this is the link but its definitely on the website

http://www.owenscorning.com/around/roofing/zip.asp?ckie=complete

I built this one last week:
http://perfectmancave.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23724

It I used 2" for the walls and even for the chambers.

A 24VDC power supply can be wired up directly to the thermostat and if you're handy you can remove the thermister from the thermostat's PCB, attach some wires and then resolder to the PCB.

My HD had 2" 4x8 sheets. I got the thermostat from Menards. I had the power supply and fan from a first attempt stir plate that never really worked out.

bake3310 said:

I built this one last week:
http://perfectmancave.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23724

It I used 2" for the walls and even for the chambers.

A 24VDC power supply can be wired up directly to the thermostat and if you're handy you can remove the thermister from the thermostat's PCB, attach some wires and then resolder to the PCB.

My HD had 2" 4x8 sheets. I got the thermostat from Menards. I had the power supply and fan from a first attempt stir plate that never really worked out.

Click to expand...

Wooowwee

I brewed a Munich Helles on Monday and it has been holding at 50F since Tuesday afternoon.
Full disclosure though, I did have to put additional 2-liters of ice in the main chamber to get the temp down to 50, but this design doesn't have active air-conditioning as much as it is like your great-grandfathers ice box.

I'm in process with one as well. Building the box its self was easy enough, but ironing out the electronic specifics has a few pitfalls.

Going the Cooler Guys route seems to be the easiest plug and play solution, but if you get the controller, power supply, fan(s) and extension cables from them, it adds up to a fair amount of coin. I was tempted to do this, but then I thought, If I'm going to put more than $100 into a foam box that I have to keep shovelling ice into, I might as well spend just a little bit more on a 2nd hand chest freezer and JC.

Anyone that has an old scrap PC lying around could just strip the cooling fans and power supply for free...that's what I did. An old unused cell phone type AC/DC wall warts work just as well, but keep in mind that most of those don't put out a full 12 volts, so the fan will run proportionally slower with a lower voltage. That's not necessarily an issue for this application though.
Finding a reasonably priced thermostat that meets all the necessary design criteria is the tricky one IMO. Most of the ones that were used when this design was first popularized have long since been dicontinued. You want one that has battery backup, and the ability/option of powering itself from those batteries, not just as a memory back-up.
I just picked up a Honeywell RTH111B for $20, but upon dismantling it, I was dissapointed to learn that extending the thermister is a no go. This newer generation of stat utlizes miniaturized sensing components that cannot be extended by removal and wire extension. It will still work fine if I mount it inside the ferm chamber, but I won't be able to monitor it without opening the box up and losing all the cool air. The other drawback is that I won't be able to monitor the temp of the beer, per se, just the air around the beer. I can work around this with a turkey fryer thermometer pushed through the top of the box with the tip submerged in water within a yeast vial, just like you'd do on a keezer or kegerator. That should better approximate the slower change of temp through a liquid and keep the fan from cycling more often than necessary. I can then monitor the actual wort temp vs. the thermostat sensing, and dial that down accordingly.

HTH

I decided against using my old PC's power supply in favor of a smaller converter I had lying around for a broken Sony Media Streaming device. It also delivers a full 12 volts. Chances are, you or someone you know has a collection of old electronic junk somewhere...the 3" DC fan and power supply should be pretty easy for most folks to just find somewhere.

Instead of the dowels and grommets, (which I would have had to purchase) I'm using some 5/16" threaded rod I had lying around with some fender washers and wingnuts. I'll rip some plywood clamping rails so as to apply even pressure and not collapse the side walls. I am also splitting the top cover in two so I can replenish ice without opening up the ferm chamber. For the gasket rails, I'm ripping down some baseboard trim I have from an old home improvement project. I already had some construction adhesive, so the only thing I've purchased for this project is the 4x8 panel, the thermostat, and some foam weatherstripping. I think I'm less than $40 out of pocket.

As a side note, I used the R10 2" expanded polystyrene panels from HD. Any cutting should be done far away from your living areas as it makes a snowstom mess that SWMBO was none too pleased with. The rough cut edges tend to continue to shed particles, so I thought I'd wrap them with duct tape. It sticks well to the outside (Foil/plastic wrapped) faces, but after a day it starts coming off of the raw foam edges. If you want to protect/wrap the edges, my advice is to use a tape with really agressive adhesive, or maybe pre-treat the edges with spray adhesive first. Or just sheath the whole thing in plywood.

I picked up a Honeywell non-programmable thermostat from Menards just a few weeks ago (I don't have the model number, but I think it was $20). The thermister was not surface mounted so it was fairly easy to de-solder from the board, connect some extension wires and resolder to the board.

Like I said, I had a 24VDC computer fan and the power supply laying around from an old stir plate that didn't work out very well (the second one was much better).

I used a hack saw to cut the 2" foam, but wish that I had used my jigsaw. The hack saw cuts are rough and the jigsaw cuts are smooth.

If I had to do it again I would try and figure out how to separate the ice drawer from the bucket/carboy chamber. That would reduce the amount of cool air lost.

Regardless, I was able to do a Munich Helles and held the chamber at 50F.