Sanyo Fridge Fermentation Chamber Project

[daveMN]

I finally finished my modification to a Sanyo fridge to be able to fit my 6.5 gal Big Mouth Bubbler; hopefully it's interesting enough to be worth sharing. First off, got a free Sanyo fridge. It wasn't very pretty, but it works. The main problem I had was even with the interior plastic parts of the door removed, I still had at least an inch of my carboy sticking out of the fridge. To turn a short post long (with pics below), I cut out a section of the inside of the fridge, moved the compressor back about 2 inches and made a new inside piece. Here's how it went:
First, Fridge with door panel and seal removed:

Second pic: I detached the compressor from the frame and cut out the sheet metal with a Dremel oscillating tool. It worked ok. I removed the insulation and cut back the sheet metal an additional 2 inches across the top. One thing I picked up from reading other threads on the topic is to make sure there is room for airflow for the compressor. Even with these changes that I made, there’s about the same room around the compressor.

Third pic: I cut out the inside of the fridge to increase the capacity using the same dremel tool. It worked pretty well here.

Fourth pic: The plastic door was used to piece together the new shape inside. The corners had the right radius for the interior of the fridge. The only problem was that the door wasn’t as wide so I had to “stretch” it with a few bits and pieces from the door. I glued it all together with outdoor sealant. The seams aren’t the prettiest, but it’s sealed up.

 

[daveMN]

After I finished the inside, I used Great Stuff Window and Door foam insulation and reused the sheet metal panel. Great Stuff is messy stuff.

Second pic: Here’s the compressor move. All I did was take the plate that the compressor sits on and rotate it 180 degrees. That had the effect of moving the compressor back two inches.

Third pic: I painted the top to clean it up and painted the inside bottom where I made the changes. Also bent down the freezer/ chilling plate to fit the fermenter. I don’t have a picture of it, but I cut out the rest of the door plastic from the edge and used the remaining edge to hold down the door gasket. And with the BMB inside. It fits! Overall, I added about 2 inches to the interior of the fridge. I’ll be controlling the temp with a Johnson Controls A319 controller that I got free from my brother. Total cost of this project is the Great Stuff for about $4. I probably spent way more time on it than I should have, but it was an enjoyable project. Next time, I'll learn how to post/rotate pictures better... Cheers!