FINALLY! My fermentation chiller

[Dr_Deathweed]

There were no coils in the bottom of that fridge. But I wont vouch for every fridge out there

 

[talleymonster]

Let's get some stain on that beast! And put up some pics, too!

 

[Andri]

That had some real potential, is this project dead, is that furniture just sitting like that?

 

[Dr_Deathweed]

It is fully functional and has been in heavy use over the last year. I have not put stain or trim on it, but I was in desperate need of the book case and ran out of free time to work on this. I still plan on staining and cleaning it up, but that will probably happen when we move next.

Besides, I am a huge fan of function over form, so as long as it is working I am happy even if the wood is unstained

 

[fidjit]

Looks pretty sweet!

 

[pilotdane]

This thread has given me some good ideas for my impending fermentation station. I'm using an old side-by-side fridge right now and it is too big and small at the same time. It takes up a lot of space and the freezer side is largely a waste (though I do store my grain in there), and the fridge side will only hold one 6 gal bucket and two Mr. Beer fermentors.

 

[ramz7887]

Nice Job!

 

[Push Eject]

It is fully functional and has been in heavy use over the last year...

Besides, I am a huge fan of function over form, so as long as it is working I am happy even if the wood is unstained

That's what matters. Well done, deathweed.

Push E.

 

[SFalex]

Inspiring, to say the least. Well Done!

 

[CPTHOOK]

sweet i am building something similar and i will post when finished. keep up the good work

 

[431brew]

Now to just add the relay and hook it to the compressor and.... I start smelling smoke.... A test i ran at least a dozen times, but now it doesn't work. I look around and see this:
View attachment 5556

The neg battery terminal has cooked through. I hope I didn't fry my thermostat... I look around and everything seems to be wired correctly, the only difference between my successful test run and now is the addition to the cooling circuit and the relay, and those are on a different power supply than the thermostat... I think I am done for the day, I will scratch my head over this one tomorrow. Now to spend some time with the neglected feeling SWMBO.

So what caused the cooking? Maybe I missed it in the thread somewhere. Everything still going well? No sparks, fires, electrocutions? This is a cool project, and I may get the courage to try it someday. I am a little afraid to do my own electrical work on something like this where you have to modify parts. Changed a light fixture last weekend and was kind of expecting to see smoke afterwards.

 

[Dr_Deathweed]

I had poor contacts and had not installed any kind of safty fuse, so I ended up drawing a lot of current across the terminal. Unfortunatly this also fried the termostat, so i just got a new one and have been using batteries in them for the last... however long it has been since I have started this thread. As far as all the other electrical stuff, its on relays, so I dont have to worry about frying anything else.

 

[allaboutduncan]

What size was your mini-fridge? Looking to do something similar and want to use a 1.7, if I can. Thanks.

 

[Wolfbayne]

Bringing this one back to life....did you finish the project? stained? painted?

Has it held up over time and what would you change in your plans if you had to rebuild?

 

[Dr_Deathweed]

What size was your mini-fridge? Looking to do something similar and want to use a 1.7, if I can. Thanks.

My understanding (please correct me if I am wrong anybody) but the compressors on most but the largest mini-fridges are about the same. The one I used was a 2 or 2.5 IIRC, but it has been a few years since I have done this project.

As far as resurrection, I ended up never staining or painting since it has found a home in the garage, but has worked quite well for me over the years. The only problem I have had was recently I have been tripping the GFCI it is plugged into. Since I have been on a all too long hiatus from brewing, this will be looked into once by brewery project gets back on line.