kegerator conversion

so awhile back i bought a kegerator that a buddy did. it was an older fridge but he made it look nice and added the fridge conversion kit. the main problem was the thermostat was going out and i bought it just for the kit. finally the fridge crashed on me and i went and got a cheap $20 from craigslist just to hold the beer til i got a new fridge. finding the right fridge is kind of hard due to my price range so i decided to turn this one into my new kegerator, BUT after i bought all new lines and fittings my lovely GF said lets get a better fridge. back to square one. so im looking for a fridge over the next few days but i will post pics of what i am planning on doing tom and go from there. basically my goal is to have one HB tap and one standard tap ( I work for a local brewery and get a great deal on beer) so why not have a tap of award winning beer at home. thanks guys

Thermostat failure should be pretty easy to overcome, no? Get a pid controller with relay output, put it in charge of the compressor, make sure you set the minimum cycles to avoid burning out the compressor. Done and done.

--OR--

I'm not sure you posed a question?

Yeah unfortunately I'm not very electrical minded but that could be an option too. The main thing is the amount of power the old one uses is prob 3 times the amount of any newer one would. The way he set it up is kind of different and I wanted to change it up anyways. That is definitely something to look into tho. Thanks. pics tomorrow

One thing to consider is that the old one will last for many years, new fridges are designed with a very limited lifespan in mind. I'd rather have a higher electric bill. Oh, and if the new fridge is a Samsung, go with anything else.

Hava-brew said:

Yeah unfortunately I'm not very electrical minded but that could be an option too. The main thing is the amount of power the old one uses is prob 3 times the amount of any newer one would. The way he set it up is kind of different and I wanted to change it up anyways. That is definitely something to look into tho. Thanks. pics tomorrow

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So use the relay in the PID controller to drive a 30-amp relay down-line.

But i agree that having someone around with electrical knowledge would be preferable.

What I'm saying, essentially, is that the thermostat is a relatively crude mechanism for turning the compressor on and off. And for less than $100 you can have a technologically advanced mechanism for turning the compressor on and off.

One that lets you select an exact temperature, and which will anticipate and attempt to prevent both undershoot and overshoot of that temperature.