Can I bypass a stock thermostat with a STC1000

[JayBrews]

Ok, I've never posted anything on here and although I get most of my help just reading what is available I need help that I can not find. I've been brewing extract for years and started to lose interest because I can not stand
bottling beer anymore and I want to open my options with recipes so I decided to go all grain and build a keezer with a frigidaire 7.2 chest freezer. Now, I know this topic is exhausted and I'm sure I may be able to find an
answer going over the hundreds of pages related to the STC-1000 but I'm excited to get this built and I have a few questions. Can I bypass the stock thermostat with the STC-1000? I fried the original because, in a nutshell, I'm
an idiot. I was cleaning the compressor compartment and I knocked the wire from the thermostat to the compressor off the connection tab and accidentally reattached it to the the ground and when I turned it on the lights in my
garage went out and now the thermostat doesn't work. I'm confident I didn't hurt the freezer but I'm trying to keep cost down considering this is my first attempt at building one of these so i don't want to get carried away. The
a new thermostat is around $50 and really don't want to buy one unless I have to. I've been doing a lot of reading about heating and cooling and basic on/off use with the temperature controllers. All I want to do is keep beer
cold. I have no intention of using this keezer for anything else. I love diagrams and electrical work doesn't scare me. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading, sorry for rambling.

 

[day_trippr]

Generally you can indeed remove the in and out connections to the oem thermostat and run them through the cold side relay on a controller like the stc-1000. Add power for the controller internal needs, connect and position the temperature sensor, and you have a solution. It's pretty much that simple.

First, you should unplug the unit from the wall outlet, remove the wires going to/from the thermostat, short them together, then plug the unit into the outlet. If the compressor spins up you're good to go with the external controller, but if it doesn't turn on you need to solve that problem...

Cheers!

 

[JayBrews]

Compressor spins! Thanks for the info.

 

[stillshinen]

Day Tripper,

Now suppose it didn't spin? I did pretty much everything you posted but... may have done a little trial and ERROR. I didn't smell anything but i think i have smoked the STC. I have another one on the way, but when i try that one i want to be sure i am not Fing it up. I have a blue wire going to a red wire to the light. The brown wire leaves the light that goes into thermostat. Then a black wire leaving the other end of the thermostat. Please check my assumptions and if correct i can wire the STC-1000 when it arrives.
Blue- hot/power into the Power of STC
Brown- Negative
Black- is power to the compressor

With that said do i jump the brown wire from the power side of the STC to Cool side of the STC?

All help is appreciated for all.

 

[Rhumbline]

I just wired mine yesterday, so I'll try to help.

The STC is meant to replace the thermostat, the thermostat being a switch that activates at a set temp. What you should be doing is substituting the STC for the thermostat because the STC allows greater control over a wider temp range.

Reread Day Trippers post carefully

You should not be putting any power into the thermostat circuit, and you don't need to be doing anything to the compressor. the only connection between your freezer and the STC should be the two wires that used to go to the thermostat assembly should now go to the cool terminals of the STC. The only other thing you need to do with the STC is provide 120v power to it.

You may have fried something in the freezer

 

[stillshinen]

So now I tried to put it back together with the analog thermostat and all I get is the breaker trips. Where as last night the compressor would spin. I didn't let it go long enough to see if it was getting cold. Is there compressor fried (not sure why). Or is there something else I should try?

 

[Rhumbline]

So now I tried to put it back together with the analog thermostat and all I get is the breaker trips. Where as last night the compressor would spin. I didn't let it go long enough to see if it was getting cold. Is there compressor fried (not sure why). Or is there something else I should try?

You might check to see if there is a reset button somewhere. Next thing I'd try is to disconnect the analog thermostat again and see if you can get the compressor to cycle on.

If not, then the only other thing I'd say to check is that there wasn't something wrong with the way it was put back together.