Temp control on modern fridge: Is it safe?

My wife and I recently moved and there is no room for our "big" refrigerator in our tiny kitchen so it is sitting unused in the basement. It is a modern, electronically controlled unit and I am concerned that using an external temp controller, an STC-1000, to effectively unplug it repeatedly throughout the day may damage it. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of situation?

We plan on moving again in a year or two and the fridge will be put back into service then. Space is at a premium in our current place, so I would prefer not to bring in another fridge/freezer if I don't have to but I also don't want to explain to SWMBO why the fridge we haven't finished paying for is broken.

The fridge is an LG LMX25964SS.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

As long as the compressor isn't short cycling (there's a setting on the STC-1000 for this) you should be fine. However, given it's an LG, you might want to avoid doing anything with it if you want to avoid the dog house. LG fridges tend to die an early death even in a regular setting.

BigRob said:

As long as the compressor isn't short cycling (there's a setting on the STC-1000 for this) you should be fine. However, given it's an LG, you might want to avoid doing anything with it if you want to avoid the dog house. LG fridges tend to die an early death even in a regular setting.

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Ahhh haaa that isn't good news!!!! Sorry! ha

I think as long as you're not cycling power to it more than every few minutes it wouldn't be much different than having a power outage. Main thing I've noticed about unplugging the newer modern computer controlled fridges is it seems to confuse their defrost cycle, almost like the thing tries to remember what times of day it is opened least and defrost during those times. I have a GE fridge that sounds similar to yours. I have noticed it does not even try to start cooling for at least about 5 minutes after it is plugged in.

Why not just get a thermometer and play around with the settings until you find what gives you the proper temps? Its not like a freezer where you need a controller to keep it from freezing. I'm assuming you are using it for lagering. I did that with my garage fridge and it worked well. Perhaps if your looking for ale temps (above 60) that wouldn't work. I don't really have any problems finding area in the house that work for ale temps.

Yeah, what tbel said. I would check how the actual temperatures are at each of the settings of the factory electronic control. If the range isn't quite where you need it, you may be able to connect some resistance in series with the factory sensor (probably a thermistor) to shift it to the temperature range that you want. It would take some tinkering however....

Ok, imagination hat time:

I wonder, has anybody tried cutting a hole through the separation between freezer and fridge? What happens?

neosapien said:

Ok, imagination hat time:

I wonder, has anybody tried cutting a hole through the separation between freezer and fridge? What happens?

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The way I would do it is by using a box cutter and cutting a small hole and then slowly cut away the insulation to see if there were any lines inside it. From there, hook a small computer fan up going from freezer to fridge and vicaversa to see if the temps even out.

I haven't tried it but I would use a hole saw. A hole saw for wood will cut through it but it will make a much bigger mess than one meant for metal or plastic. But right, if there's any wiring or refrigerant lines in the area for some reason that would pretty much sever them.