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Fermentation Chamber Wiring Help

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stever1000

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I have taken the cooling system out of an old bar fridge and mounted it on an insulated box I made to be a fermentation chamber.

I need help to rewire the circuit to bypass the thermostat, and door switch/light.
Below is the diagram. I'm sure it's easy, but I don't want to damage the fridge components by wiring it wrong.

I have it wired as is in the diagram, however it's not turning on or responding at all. I know the fridge works because I tested it before...

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You don't need to worry about rewiring everything to bypass the thermostat. All you need to do is to go to ebay or amazon and purchase an STC-1000 2-stage temp controller (Under $20).
Then use the following diagram below to wire a Cooling and Heating circuit with a standard duplex outlet. And just plug in the power cord from your bar fridge into the Cooling side of the outlet.

Once all that's done, just set the STC-1000 controller to set the targeted fermentation temp and your all set.

Once the weather turns cold, just buy a small personal heater and plug it into the Heating circuit side of the outlet and it will keep it at the desired fermentation temp regardless of the ambient temp.

Don't forget to turn the thermostat on the bar fridge all the way down (coldest setting).


stc_1000_wiring_diagram.jpg

:mug:
 
I'm not worried about that part, I mean at the moment the fridge doesn't work. I cut the cord with the white, black, brown and blue wires that go from the black box left of the compressor inside the fridge to the thermostat,light,etc. I then spliced in longer wires so it would reach inside my new chamber.

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I triple checked to make sure the appropriate wire was connected to the right piece inside, and it still doesn't work.
 
So short the blue wire to the brown wire. If that doesn't turn on the compressor, either you don't really have continuity in all the right places after extending the wires, or there's something else wrong...

Cheers!
 
So short the blue wire to the brown wire. If that doesn't turn on the compressor, either you don't really have continuity in all the right places after extending the wires, or there's something else wrong...

Cheers!

Excellent, I will try this tomorrow night. If that's the case and it works, would it be fine to leave the blue wire connected to the brown wire and let the STC1000 control the temp?
Thanks!
 
You could certainly do that, just make sure you don't leave the probe outside the cabinet because there's no fail-safe ;)

Cheers!

Thanks so much for your help, tripping those two wires together worked and the compressor turned on! So now I know for sure it works again.
I will try to get better connectors for the longer wires and wire it again. if it doesn't work, I will just cheat and short the wires permanently:mug:
Thanks again!
 
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