Fridge temperature control

Morning all, I just aquired a Hotpoint First Edition Undercounter Fridge.

It seems good for my purposes, I can nicely fit two 5L jars in there with 2 shelves left for beer! I'm not quite ready to start cutting the thing to pieces, I'd rather get it useful with the minimum extra expence or effort.

My main issue currently is that it's operating temperaturs seem to be -2c on max and 10c on min. Really I need to get it a bit warmer in there for actually brewing, though its good for cold-crahing later as is.

I guess I need some kind of external thermostat? Could anyone give me some advise on exactly what I'm looking for?

 

Here is what I use for that very purpose:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Digital-Temperat...593?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e63c529f1

Works great.

 

How do you use it? Did you open up the side of the fridge where the original temp control is and wire that in instead?

Edit: Ah looking at the other threads around here did you need to buy yourself a box and some plugs to wire it all up yourself?
Hmmm, I guess I could give that a go...

 

Check out this thread about building an ebay temp controller. The difference between the ebay link posted earlier and the model used in the build thread is a matter of max amps. I modified my plans and used the controllers per the thread and have been happy.

 

Sweet! Cheers guys, lucky I found my soldering iron the other week!

 

I used a Love controller. Auto heat and cool. Plus I added a fan that runs on the heat cycle. I just hacked up some cheap extension cords for the plugs. Working awesome for about a year now.

 

pre-wired models exist as well. Plug the fridge into the controller, then the controller into the wall -

search for Johnson and Ranco

 

Yeah I spotted those, don't seem to be sold over here, will give the custom ones a go!

 

Cheers all, have ordered all the bits I need for this, hopefully I'll be able to get it up and running without killing myself!