Tips on pc fans for chest freezers.

I've had to put on a taller collar than I wanted to thanks to the height of the compressor hump in this old freezer I got.

The height of it is 9 inches. Im insulating the inside of the wood with sheets of polystyrene but I need a fan or two in it as well. The freezer is about 7cu and holds 4 kegs and the gas. All gaps are also sealed up with silicone sealer.

The bottom two kegs both sit under the height of the original seal and therefore are surrounded by freezer lines in the walls. The ones that sit on the hump are therefore only about half to three quarters under the lip height.

Also after running it for a while I would of thought the few inches of exposed tap shanks I had would at least be cool but they aren't.

Now... a few questions...

Where to put the temp probe? Too high and I risk it reading the higher temp and freezing beer on the bottom don't I?

And where and how many fans do I put in for circulation?

I have a 12cm pc fan comming as well as some smaller ones. I hope to run them off an old mobile phone charger.

Any tips or a how to from you guys that have done this before?

Much appreciated, I haven't even got to the pour a beer stage yet but looking to do the job right the first time.

Pics are even better

that should move the cold pretty well. you just want to create a movement. what i would do is mount it on the bottom part of the freezer. you can make a box and put the fan on the top blowing up. will push the cold air up and get enough movement.

slot the bottom of the box so it can pull enough air. so i would make the box about 5" square. slot the bottom making "legs" about 1" longer then the box so you can make the slots about 3" wide 1 inch tall on all sides. you could also make a tube the same way that will push the cold air up and dump higher say around 3" from the lid. put a 90 on the end and you will create good air movement.

To give you an idea as to what it should/would look like try this.

Ant

Cool I can basically make a copy of that with a pc fan. Just need to wire one up, drill holes for the leads etc etc. Got a tech mate doing the wiring for me although its very low volt.

Would one fan be enough though? Maybe the one on its own like pictured there and one with tubing directed at the tap shanks? Wouldn't be hard to do with some plastic plumbing tubing as you said.

id use pvc pipe and one of those plastic junction boxes. drill a hole on the lid the side of the pipe. mount the fan below. ill come up with some drawings tomarrow for ya. they wont be pretty but it should be enough to make sense. the wiring can be simple enough. just use an old cellphone charger. cut the ends then use a vom to see which is positive or negative. should work with 5 volts. you wont get the same volume of air but you just need it to circulate not race as you want the warm air to displace the cold air and visa versa.

Cheers mate for the help. Much appreciated.

ok here is my ugly idea.. you dont want to move the air too fast since you want the air that is warm to cool and drop. and trying ti dispipate the thermal break

Thanks mate.

I'll give this a try despite the one fan I just put in already doing a top job in keeping a level temp thru out the keezer. It was damn hot again here in OZ and despite this after I put in thick foam polystyrene insulation on the inside of the collar, sealing all gaps with silicone and putting in a fan on the bottom...........the tap shanks AND the taps OUTSIDE the keezer were cold to touch. Not frosty but in this heat its a good sign that the fan is doing the job. Not sure I need to go the pipe option but it can't hurt giving it a try also.

Just goes to show if you are thorough it eliminates a LOT of problems that can arise.

I only use 1 in my keezer that has 2x8 for the collar. I had 2 fans , removed one and it works just fine. Its just danling there. I sit it on top of a keg and lean it against the wall. It keeps my faucets cold and beer from foaming up . You should be fine with one.

Check my gallery. I'm not sure why the pics are small now, they used to be full size. So I will describe it also. I used an old(read free) temp controller that doesnt have a remote probe. The probe is the black coil at the end of the controller. Just above the probe is a clear plastic pc fan mounted on and angle to pull air along the top of the keezer and blow over the probe. At the same time it blows to the bottom of the keezer creating circulation around the kegs and back up the sides to the fan. The fan is always on and not wired to the controller to help keep the temp constant and even throughout the keezer when the compressor isn't running. I'll see what I can do about getting the pics back to original size.