Help with modifying kegerator

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scorpionc53

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My groomsman all bought me a Frosty Keg Kegerator from Great Northern Popcorn Company a year ago. After only 9 months, the seals went bad on the included CO2 tank and I didn’t know what to do. My brother who’s going to be graduating from college offered me his 20 lb tank and I had to accept it for a couple 12 packs! I’d like to modify my kegerator to work with this beast of a CO2 tank. I have all the lines necessary and have the regulator that he had on it originally. Here’s the questions I have:

- First, has anyone retrofitted a tank this large with a smaller kegerator? The original tank was 2.5 lb. If so, any tutorials or pictures? I’m pretty handy an can follow directions.
- Does anyone know what the best way to secure the CO2 tank, Regulator, and best way to run the lines into the kegerator?

A couple ideas are as follows:

- Figuring out some type of mount for the Co2 tank to attach to the kegerator
- Mounting the regulator directly to the co2 tank and running lines into the fridge from that. 2 options for running lines below.
o First, is there a safe spot to drill a hole in my specific kegerator wall? Anyone know where or is there a way to tell? I don’t want to cut any refrigerant lines.
o I was thinking of either running the line through a hole in the side of the fridge to the tap and caulking around it to keep the insulation in.
o Option 2 is to get some pneumatic quick disconnect fittings. Put a male/male port onto the fridge wall so that a male connection point sticks out of the fridge and another male port is on the inside. This would making changing lines a breeze if needed. Advice on the best place to get reasonably priced fittings please?
o I have some electrical wire running out of the drain hole for computer air moving fans I installed, but doubt that location is large enough to run CO2 line.

I’m open to suggestions and any help possible. I use this kegerator for random parties, but will be using it this summer to lager some homebrew. I’ve included a crappy picture trying to illustrate what I’m thinking. Thanks in advance.


image-2453314628.jpg
 
First, you REALLY need to either KNOW where the cooling lines run and avoid them, or carefully drill a test hole and poke around in there to make sure you are not going to dril/cut into one of them!

Second, I was going to buy a special bulkhead fitting made for this application, but apparently the manufacturer got destroyed in the NY hurricane, and so I decided it would just be better to drill a hole big enough for the gas line to go through the kegerator wall, and then install grommets on each side to plug the space around the line. So much cheaper and still fairly easy. YMMV.

Here is a pic of the builkhead fitting in case you want to try and hunt one down somewhere. I think they go for about $15-20.

00904-MFL-Bulkhead-4-inch-web.jpg
 
Thanks for the help. I emailed the supplier that I got the kegerator from. I'm hoping they can send me a safe drill spot diagram. I would think this is something that someone's got to have. There's all kinds of bulkheads out there, but most are for permanent installation of hose, not screw type fittings.
 
I googled for fittings and found links to this guys mod where he put it into another room. I basically want to do the same thing, but find these type of fittings that I can setup on the kegerator wall in a location I can hopefully find to drill through to the inside. Anyone know the name of these fittings, and where to get them? Can i get a bulkhead length that'll reach the gap of the fridge wall? Also any help on how to find a spot to drill.


image-393750711.jpg



image-966477897.jpg
 
what ever you do, do not drill from the outside of the fridge!! Drill the plastic on the inside then remove the insulation so you can see the coolant lines that are against the outer skin. I drilled a 1/16" hole on the outside once and killed my fridge.

Here is a pic of my QD on my kegerator using the adapter like pictured above.....

CollarCo2a-1.jpg


CollarCo2e-1.jpg
 
Someone in another thread suggested that most mini fridges that have the plate cooler in the back of the fridge will not have any coolant lines in the side walls. Does anyone have the frosty keg and have modified it?
 
...
Second, I was going to buy a special bulkhead fitting made for this application, but apparently the manufacturer got destroyed in the NY hurricane, and so I decided it would just be better to drill a hole big enough for the gas line to go through the kegerator wall, and then install grommets on each side to plug the space around the line. So much cheaper and still fairly easy. YMMV.

Do you have a pic on how you did this?
 
Someone in another thread suggested that most mini fridges that have the plate cooler in the back of the fridge will not have any coolant lines in the side walls. Does anyone have the frosty keg and have modified it?

This is not true!! I don't have the Frosty Keg so I don't know about that brand but almost all new mini fridges have internal cooling lines.
 
Monster Mash said:
This is not true!! I don't have the Frosty Keg so I don't know about that brand but almost all new mini fridges have internal cooling lines.

That's what I thought. Waiting on a reply from the manufacture before I cut anything open.
 
Here's a few pics showing the inside of my fridge. If anyone can tell from these pics the safe areas I could drill, please let me know.

Picture of the left/back/right of the fridge
image-1855663145.jpg

Pic of the left wall
image-3236978095.jpg

Pic of the top right. Wire running towards top right of the pic is the power to the thermostat
image-2527802300.jpg

Bottom right. You can see where a coolant line goes down to the compressor, or into the walls of the fridge???
image-4139834678.jpg

This last picture shows some possible hole locations from what I can see without doing any starch tests.
image-2234079707.jpg

For hole location 4, if there's nothing under there, I'd make sure I'm very careful when drilling as to not run the drill bit into the compressor or any wires under. Let me know if anyone else has a kegerator like this that they've drilled holes through. Thanks.
 
What kind of condensing element does this thing use? Is there a radiator-looking chunk attached to the back or under-side, or does it use the cabinet skin as a radiator (hence there'll be a crap ton of tubing hidden somewhere just under the sheet metal)?

Cheers!
 
The smooth back tells you that the condenser coils are in the outside walls. Avoid drilling the walls.

The location you marked #4 may be the only place you can see from the outside to tell if there is anything in the way.
 
You can cut a hole anywhere in the plastic on the inside big enough to stick your finger through. Dig through the insulation until you feel the outer skin, if you move your finger around enough you will find the cooling lines and drill between them.

I've done this on two fridges and it works. The one fridge I didn't do this with I killed.....
 
I want to restart this thread because I'm ready to pop a hole in it for my gas line. Does anyone know where or have examples of what they've done to put their gas line to the outside of their kegerator? I'd like to do something with quick disconnects on a 5/16" line. I can find shanks do do something like that, but they're typically 3" or larger and only for beer line. Any help?
 
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