Ranco thermostat settings

[furlow008]

Just got mine, and it has a heating setting, and a cooling setting. Since I am heating the fridge to a warmer temp, is that which one I use?

 

[BlindLemonLars]

No...your fridge is a cooling device, use the cooling setting. You're not "heating" the fridge, you're just not allowing it cool down to normal refrigerator temps.

 

[Brewsmith]

If you're plugging the refrigerator into the controller, it need to be on the cool setting. When the ambient temp goes above the setting, the fridge kicks on and cools it down. Mine is set to 68 right now, and it's about 95 ambient temp.

In the winter I reverse it. The ambient temp is lower and the fermentation fridge will get too cold even with no power. I keep a lightbulb under a coffee can on the top shelf of the fridge so I can switch the controller over to "heat" to keep the temp up to 68.

 

[Brewsmith]

Here's a photo of mine...

To cool, the fridge is plugged into the controller. To heat, the improvised heat lamp is plugged into the controller.