Help with Fermenter/Keezer

Greetings! I'm trying to put together a fermenter/keezer,

I got an older Holiday Freezer, and a Williams Controller I, but the freezer would not respond to the controllers thermostat. I tried lots of different settings but it would not control it.

I ended up reading about the coarse screw adjustment here on HBT and tinkered with it and got it to hold water at 40F. Which is ok for storing kegs but a little low for lagering.

Are there some freezers that don't or can't respond to the controllers? Is it just broke? I don't want to shell out the money for a new controller if the freezer I have can't use them to begin with...

Thanks in advance!

 

Your story makes no sense. In what way would it not respond to the controller?

If by "williams controller I" you mean the $60 Johnson unit, i can't fathom how it wouldn't work for you unless it was straight up defective or you weren't actually sticking the probe inside the freezer.

 

I guess I should say the freezer would not respond. We turned the controller up to 80F and the compressor continued to run. Maybe I will experiment with it more.

And yes the sensor was placed in the freezer.

 

the controller just turns on/off power to the freezer. if your prob is on the inside not touching the walls or bottom, plug your freezer into the controller, plug your controller into the wall, turn your freezer down to a colder setting (the controller will turn on and off the freezer to control temp) set your controller temp so it kicks on the freezer, let it run to cool a little then adjust your temp set point to what your controller says the temp is and see if it turns it off. make sure your differental setting is only a degree or two so you don't have to wait so long to make sure it is all working properly.
If your freezer works properly on it's own then your settings on your controller are most likely the issue, or your controller is faulty.
good luck, keep us posted.