Hi,

We have an upright fridge in our garage as an overflow fridge.
It seems to have died - apparently it went BANG!

We also have a chest freezer, I assume if I can control the temperature
inside this to about 4-5 degrees C, I can use this as a fridge?

Where can I get a plug in thermostat, that will control a freezer?
I found this
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...m_1/index.html

But it appears to be made to control a heater, so it will come on when it is
too cold, rather than the other way around - any ideas?
(I would open this up and extend the wiring for the thermistor, then place
this in the freezer)
The manual makes reference to it clicking, so I assume it has a relay, I
could swap the relay out for a N/C I suppose, but if I can avoid this
hassle, I will - any ideas people!?

(I really can't be arsed with taking the freezer apart and playing with it's
controls either!)

Ta

Sparks...

"Sparks" wrote in message
...
Hi,

We have an upright fridge in our garage as an overflow fridge.
It seems to have died - apparently it went BANG!

We also have a chest freezer, I assume if I can control the temperature
inside this to about 4-5 degrees C, I can use this as a fridge?

Where can I get a plug in thermostat, that will control a freezer?
I found this
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...m_1/index.html

But it appears to be made to control a heater, so it will come on when it
is
too cold, rather than the other way around - any ideas?
(I would open this up and extend the wiring for the thermistor, then place
this in the freezer)
The manual makes reference to it clicking, so I assume it has a relay, I
could swap the relay out for a N/C I suppose, but if I can avoid this
hassle, I will - any ideas people!?

(I really can't be arsed with taking the freezer apart and playing with
it's
controls either!)

Ta

Sparks...


How about using a timeswitch to turn the freezer on for a few minutes every
hour or so. You may have to experiment with the on period to find an
acceptable temperature and you will have to increase it a bit during the
summer to compensate for a higher external temperature.
You could always fit a fridge stat instead but that might be more effort
than you want to make?

Bob

"Bob Minchin" wrote in message
...

"Sparks" wrote in message
...
Hi,

We have an upright fridge in our garage as an overflow fridge.
It seems to have died - apparently it went BANG!

We also have a chest freezer, I assume if I can control the temperature
inside this to about 4-5 degrees C, I can use this as a fridge?

Where can I get a plug in thermostat, that will control a freezer?
I found this
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...m_1/index.html

But it appears to be made to control a heater, so it will come on when it
is
too cold, rather than the other way around - any ideas?
(I would open this up and extend the wiring for the thermistor, then
place
this in the freezer)
The manual makes reference to it clicking, so I assume it has a relay, I
could swap the relay out for a N/C I suppose, but if I can avoid this
hassle, I will - any ideas people!?

(I really can't be arsed with taking the freezer apart and playing with
it's
controls either!)

Ta

Sparks...


How about using a timeswitch to turn the freezer on for a few minutes
every
hour or so. You may have to experiment with the on period to find an
acceptable temperature and you will have to increase it a bit during the
summer to compensate for a higher external temperature.
You could always fit a fridge stat instead but that might be more effort
than you want to make?

Bob

I suppose that might work, Trouble is, the time switches I have only have 8
on/off times, I will need at least 12 :-(

I don't really want to change the stat in the freezer, as we only want to
use it as a fridge over the Christmas period, then it will be turned off,
possibly used as a freezer at another time.

Sparks...

"Sparks" wrote in message
...

I don't really want to change the stat in the freezer, as we only want to
use it as a fridge over the Christmas period, then it will be turned off,
possibly used as a freezer at another time.

Over christmas, assuming you're in the UK, won't it be pretty cool inside
the garage anyway? In which case you could either:

a) Not bother
b) Use the freezer as a big unpowered cool box - stick some bottles of ice
in (2L lemonade bottles work well for this)
c) Run it manually since the required duty cycle will be very low

cheers,
clive

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:12:41 -0000, "Sparks"
wrote:

Hi,

We have an upright fridge in our garage as an overflow fridge.
It seems to have died - apparently it went BANG!

We also have a chest freezer, I assume if I can control the temperature
inside this to about 4-5 degrees C, I can use this as a fridge?

Where can I get a plug in thermostat, that will control a freezer?
I found this
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...m_1/index.html

But it appears to be made to control a heater, so it will come on when it is
too cold, rather than the other way around - any ideas?
(I would open this up and extend the wiring for the thermistor, then place
this in the freezer)
The manual makes reference to it clicking, so I assume it has a relay, I
could swap the relay out for a N/C I suppose, but if I can avoid this
hassle, I will - any ideas people!?

(I really can't be arsed with taking the freezer apart and playing with it's
controls either!)

Hi,

If the thermostat in the fridge is still working, box it up and use
that. With a bit of luck it will have a capilliary so the sensor
'bulb' can be in the freezer with the rest of it outside.

cheers,
Pete.

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:12:41 -0000, "Sparks"
wrote:

We also have a chest freezer, I assume if I can control the temperature
inside this to about 4-5 degrees C, I can use this as a fridge?

Freezers (and fridges) don't measure cabinet air temperature as they
would cycle on/off far to often and this dramatically shortens the
life of the compressor. They usually sense the evaporator plate
temperature and the thermostat has a lot of hysteresis to stop short
cycling. You need to emulate this behaviour.

Use a timer as suggested - on for a time once every few hours should
be fine (particularly with a chest freezer) if the cabinet is about
2/3 full. If its emptyish put a bucket full of water in to freeze
and act as a cold store. You will have poor air circulation and the
probability that stuff on the base will freeze and on top be a bit to
warm. If its mainly drinks it won't be too much of a problem, if its
leftover turkey take care.

--
Peter Parry.
http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:28:21 -0000, "Sparks"
wrote:

I suppose that might work, Trouble is, the time switches I have only have 8
on/off times, I will need at least 12 :-(

If they are relay output simply wire two in parallel to give you 16
switching times.
--
Peter Parry.
http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/

Sparks wrote:

Hi,

We have an upright fridge in our garage as an overflow fridge.
It seems to have died - apparently it went BANG!

We also have a chest freezer, I assume if I can control the temperature
inside this to about 4-5 degrees C, I can use this as a fridge?

Where can I get a plug in thermostat, that will control a freezer?
I found this
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...m_1/index.html

But it appears to be made to control a heater, so it will come on when it is
too cold, rather than the other way around - any ideas?
(I would open this up and extend the wiring for the thermistor, then place
this in the freezer)
The manual makes reference to it clicking, so I assume it has a relay, I
could swap the relay out for a N/C I suppose, but if I can avoid this
hassle, I will - any ideas people!?

(I really can't be arsed with taking the freezer apart and playing with it's
controls either!)

Ta

Sparks...

There shouldnt be any need for a fridge this time of year. Just keep
using the dead one.


NT

wrote:

There shouldnt be any need for a fridge this time of year. Just keep
using the dead one.

After a few days it will smell like there is a corpse in it and the food
would have to be chucked out.

Galaxy wrote:
wrote:

There shouldnt be any need for a fridge this time of year. Just keep
using the dead one.

After a few days it will smell like there is a corpse in it and the food
would have to be chucked out.

Mine was fine switched off all winter, year after year, so why would
the OP's starto to stink? Unless of course there was a dead corpse in
it...


NT

wrote in message
oups.com...
Galaxy wrote:
wrote:

There shouldnt be any need for a fridge this time of year. Just keep
using the dead one.

After a few days it will smell like there is a corpse in it and the food
would have to be chucked out.

Mine was fine switched off all winter, year after year, so why would
the OP's starto to stink? Unless of course there was a dead corpse in
it...

You'd get a hell of a fright if there was a live one in there :0)

On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 01:48:10 -0800, meow2222 wrote:

Mine was fine switched off all winter, year after year, so why would
the OP's starto to stink? Unless of course there was a dead corpse in
it...

You wouldn't want a live corpse in there.

There was a wibble somewhere (down under IIRC) where some ecofreak had
wired a chest freewer as a super-efficient fridge.

Trouble with mechanical thermostats is the hysteresis (sp?). I tried
running a fridge off a cylinder stat but it would either get too warm
before coming on or too cold before switching off. You'd really need an
electronic stat (or mechanical with accelerator heater) to get it down to
just a degree or so between switch-on and switch-off points.