Hi all,
Been browsing these forums for a while now and gotten some great ideas, so many thanks in advance for all those. I have a question I'm hoping someone has experience with. I did a quick search but couldn't find my answer here already, hope I'm not asking a very dumb question.
I'm attempting to turn my keezer into a stand-alone kitchen island, but I don't want to put a skin over the whole exterior (too much work, time, money). So that means sturdy enough to be topped with a heavy wooden butcher block, I want it too look good all 4 sides (even the back), and I want to minimize the amount of wires and stuff hanging off of it, even the back side (ideally just one: the power cord).
I went with small 5.0 Black & Decker freezer (kitchen isn't huge) and a Thompson A419 temp controller (pretty sure I'd end up frying me, the feezer, or both based on some wiring diagrams for other controllers. I'm trying to keep it simple on the grounds that I'm stupid).
Ideally the A419 gets mounted inside the compressor compartment and the probe goes through that wall into the freezer, keeping the outside of the keezer simple and neat. In order to minimize external wires/stuff I've come up with a couple solutions to the temp probe problem. Maybe you can tell me which is best (or if there is a better one):
1) drill through the walls of the compressor hump. Hopefully no coolant lines here? Ideally I'd drill right next to where the existing thermostat probe is. Has anyone tried this? After reading these forums I'm super nervous about drilling anywhere near a freezer. I tried turning on the feezer and ID'ing coolant lines based on condensation patterns but I'm really not confident that I found them all (or any really). I assume these internal walls are not being used as heat-sinks and I don't have to worry about that (?).
2) I tried removing the existing thermostat probe and pushing the thompson probe through the factory-drilled hole. No luck: it's too thick. Can I replace the thompson probe with a smaller gauge probe? Maybe even rip apart the thermostat that came with the freezer and swap the probes? Is it OK to have the original freezer thermostat probe just sort of hanging out of the way in the recessed compressor compartment? It's not functioning at this point anyway, right? Maybe my best bet is to drill exactly where the existing hole is and increase the diameter of that hole to accommodate the thompson probe diameter?
3) Return the thompson temp controller and either fiddle with the coarse-adjust on the freezer thermostat or go with something like the STC-1000 and hope my hair doesn't come out looking like I tried sucking on an extension cord.
Any advice and/or experience is appreciated!
Been browsing these forums for a while now and gotten some great ideas, so many thanks in advance for all those. I have a question I'm hoping someone has experience with. I did a quick search but couldn't find my answer here already, hope I'm not asking a very dumb question.
I'm attempting to turn my keezer into a stand-alone kitchen island, but I don't want to put a skin over the whole exterior (too much work, time, money). So that means sturdy enough to be topped with a heavy wooden butcher block, I want it too look good all 4 sides (even the back), and I want to minimize the amount of wires and stuff hanging off of it, even the back side (ideally just one: the power cord).
I went with small 5.0 Black & Decker freezer (kitchen isn't huge) and a Thompson A419 temp controller (pretty sure I'd end up frying me, the feezer, or both based on some wiring diagrams for other controllers. I'm trying to keep it simple on the grounds that I'm stupid).
Ideally the A419 gets mounted inside the compressor compartment and the probe goes through that wall into the freezer, keeping the outside of the keezer simple and neat. In order to minimize external wires/stuff I've come up with a couple solutions to the temp probe problem. Maybe you can tell me which is best (or if there is a better one):
1) drill through the walls of the compressor hump. Hopefully no coolant lines here? Ideally I'd drill right next to where the existing thermostat probe is. Has anyone tried this? After reading these forums I'm super nervous about drilling anywhere near a freezer. I tried turning on the feezer and ID'ing coolant lines based on condensation patterns but I'm really not confident that I found them all (or any really). I assume these internal walls are not being used as heat-sinks and I don't have to worry about that (?).
2) I tried removing the existing thermostat probe and pushing the thompson probe through the factory-drilled hole. No luck: it's too thick. Can I replace the thompson probe with a smaller gauge probe? Maybe even rip apart the thermostat that came with the freezer and swap the probes? Is it OK to have the original freezer thermostat probe just sort of hanging out of the way in the recessed compressor compartment? It's not functioning at this point anyway, right? Maybe my best bet is to drill exactly where the existing hole is and increase the diameter of that hole to accommodate the thompson probe diameter?
3) Return the thompson temp controller and either fiddle with the coarse-adjust on the freezer thermostat or go with something like the STC-1000 and hope my hair doesn't come out looking like I tried sucking on an extension cord.
Any advice and/or experience is appreciated!