Kegerator temperature problem-- maybe poor circulation

[bryanbibler]

I've had trouble getting my kegerator cold enough; it typically reads something like 48° on the thermometer I put in near the front. The back wall of the kegerator is covered in frozen condensation, so I know that the coolant is working. I noticed that if I move the thermometer to the back of the unit, near the source of the cold air, it reads 37°, yet every time I moved the thermometer to the front of the space, it reads something closer to the 45-50° range, even if I leave the door shut for hours to allow for the air to circulate.

My thought is that the thing has poor circulation, and I'm thinking about getting a small air pump to help improve it. Does this seem like a good idea? Also, where should I go about getting one? (I've read that kegerators with towers should really use those anyway in order to maintain constant temperature on the beer line)

thx

 

[day_trippr]

If by "air pump" you mean a small fan, sure, go for it - it certainly can't hurt. A small computer fan (like 80 or 120mm diameter) hooked up to a wall wart of the appropriate voltage (most likely a 12v fan so a 12v wall wart) strategically positioned should stir the air up nicely. All you need is a way to feed the power into the fridge...

Cheers!

 

[mikeysab]

The same thing happened to me in my fermentation chamber. I used a mini fridge and just extended it with pink insulation. I wasn't getting much cool air to the far end of the chamber. I took two computer fans and positioned them in front of the freezer section blowing out into the chamber, and it cools the whole chamber evenly now. When I built my temp controller box, I used two receptacles, one for cooling and one for heating. I did this so that I could wire a fan for each, since heating and cooling come from two different places. So the cooling side gets a plug for the fridge and a plug for the fans in the freezer section, and the heating side gets a plug for the aquarium heater and a plug for the fan pulling the air away from the heater. Hope that helps for ya.