Keezer rant

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brewmedic43

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Hey y'all, I am now on my second used chest freezer that I attached a temp controller to. The first worked great for about 6 months and then would only keep the temp around 55*F. I checked all the settings on the temp controller and they were all where I wanted them to be. I asked on here and determined that my freezer may have been low on freon and the best thing to do would be to get another freezer. So I did. I got another used freezer that I attached the temp controller to and it worked great for about 6 months again. Now it is only staying at 53*F. I am wondering if I am just unlucky with buying used freezers and they happen to wear out shortly after I buy them, or if there is some issues with converting chest freezers with temp controllers and leaving them in the garage. I live in North Texas and it does get rather warm here. I performed a test and narrowed the problem to the chest freezer (I disconnected the temp controller and plugged the freezer back into the wall, I had 2 thermometers in the freezer and they never dropped in temp). So, would a NEW chest freezer fix my recurring issues or do I need to go another route? Thanks for letting me vent and for the help
:mad:
 
1) How often is the keezer cycling power? If you have it frequently cycling, then you're going to wear out the compressor faster.
2) How well is the keezer insulated? Do you have a wooden collar on it? Does the collar have a goodly amount of insulation on the inside? Wood is an awful thermal insulator.
 
1) How often is the keezer cycling power? If you have it frequently cycling, then you're going to wear out the compressor faster.

That was my first thought exactly. Is there a cycle-delay feature on your controller to prevent frequent cycling of the compressor? I always leave my ASD set to max (12 minutes) for that reason.
 
The keezer cycles every 15 minutes. And it is a TC-9102C http://www.controlproductsonline.com/documents/TC-9102 Manual 42420054A.pdf
There is also no collar nor other insulation other than what came with the keezer. I have delayed building a collar due to indecision on making a collar or cabinet. Also, I do not have any fans inside circulating the air. I bought the freezer used and perhaps that is my issues, I do not know how old it is.
 
[...]I bought the freezer used and perhaps that is my issues, I do not know how old it is.

Likely was on its last legs and the stress of existence in a Texas garage hastened it's expiration.

fwiw, when I was hunting Craig's List for chest freezers I had a lead on a 10cf unit that the seller thought was only a few years old. When I saw the freezer it looked to be in excellent shape which made me think she was right. Then I looked at the manufacturer plate sitting right there smack in the middle of the back and noted the build date was 15 years back. I passed.

The good news is that controller defaults to a 5 minute anti-short-cycle delay, so it's unlikely the operating mode caused the demise of your used freezer - or would contribute to the death of your next unit...

Cheers!
 
The keezer cycles every 15 minutes. And it is a TC-9102C http://www.controlproductsonline.com/documents/TC-9102 Manual 42420054A.pdf
There is also no collar nor other insulation other than what came with the keezer. I have delayed building a collar due to indecision on making a collar or cabinet. Also, I do not have any fans inside circulating the air. I bought the freezer used and perhaps that is my issues, I do not know how old it is.

15 minutes is pretty frequent to be cycling. it's not enough to cause short cycling but certainly would cause it to run more frequently than it should be

what is your temperature offset?
 
I think I have the temperature offset of 10 degrees but I can't be sure. Thank you to all who replied for the help and support.
 
1) How often is the keezer cycling power? If you have it frequently cycling, then you're going to wear out the compressor faster.
2) How well is the keezer insulated? Do you have a wooden collar on it? Does the collar have a goodly amount of insulation on the inside? Wood is an awful thermal insulator.

Wood is actually a pretty good thermal insulator. It's certainly not a good thermal conductor.
 
Wood in general has an R value of about 1 - 1.6 per inch, softwoods generally better insulators than hardwoods. While a wood collar alone is a better insulator than would be a metal structure I think using foam insulation would improve things quite a bit. Styrofoam R value is about 3.6 - 4 per inch and other foam board are higher still.
 
A wood collar is more than enough insulation for a simple keezer. There's not much heat transfer there and the layers of 2" foam board that a lot of people are engineering into their collar design is just not necessary.
 
OP, I don't live in Texas but summers here get pretty hot, over a hundred for 3 or so months. The chest freezer I used I bought new in 2003, it lived in the garage the whole time. Sold it last year, still worked well. I think you've just had a bad run of luck on freezers.

If it isn't costing you an arm and leg to run, you could keep it around and plug it in when you need a fermenation chamber.
 
Truly, unless you're going large, you could buy a new freezer for a few hundred dollars. Star efficient and all that. When you pick a temp controller get one that has a good spread on the on/off cycle. I had an analog Johnson, worked just fine. Also what helped it from cycling on and off was putting the probe in a large glass of water.
 
A wood collar is more than enough insulation for a simple keezer. There's not much heat transfer there and the layers of 2" foam board that a lot of people are engineering into their collar design is just not necessary.

Right - if you compare the surface area of the collar to the entire surface area of the keezer where heat can be gained it's probably like 10 - 15% of the surface. The freezer itself probably doesn't have much more than 1 1/2 inches of foam in the walls, maybe not even that, so the net result is not a huge loss of efficiency.
 
Wood in general has an R value of about 1 - 1.6 per inch, softwoods generally better insulators than hardwoods. While a wood collar alone is a better insulator than would be a metal structure I think using foam insulation would improve things quite a bit. Styrofoam R value is about 3.6 - 4 per inch and other foam board are higher still.

I got some roll out insulation that I put over the wood.
 
Have you used polyvinyl chloride (PVC) product for the thermal insulation? I have used PVC panels as a thermal insulator. This is actually foam based PVC. PVC foam is theoretically an Inter penetrating Polymer Network of PVC and Polyurethane. The chemical interaction of these polymers produces the foam and its unique characteristics.
 
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