Fermentation fridge progress and questions

[Camberwell Canary]

I'd be grateful for help with my nearly-finished fermentation fridge. This is (honestly) the first bit of DIY of any sort I've ever done. I've never even put up shelves before:

1. Where is safe to drill a hole for the tube heater mains cable?
2. What's the best way to drill a hole big enough for the cable gland (pictured on the shelf). It's about 10mm in diameter and bigger than my biggest drill bit. Would you file, buy a holecutter or buy a massive drill bit?!
3. Does the setup look reasonable? I have the probe coming in through the drain (plenty of room left over for drainage).

Picture of my fridge:

if the link doesn't work it's uploaded to imgur forward slash DzSty5B

For people building their own fridge (sorry it's preventing me from multiple URLs because I'm a new user)...

I built the shelf myself from leftover ceiling joists (drilled and countersunk guide holes, glued and screwed together with long wood screws).
I bought safety goggles for the drilling. Definitely a good idea.
Bought a pre-wired STC-1000 from thermofix/cedaronics
Bought the 60W tube heater from toolstation and mounted it to the shelf
Fridge £30 from East Dulwich Forum.


Thank you

CC

 

[PD]

Dont bother drilling holes for the cables, you will probably hit on or two of the internal coolant pipes that run in between the walls and back.
The door seal is good enough to trap the heater cable in place when you shut the door hard.
Not perfect but very adequate.

PD

 

[liamg1285]

on my fridge i ran the heater power cable through the hole u have ran the temperature probe and then run the temperature probe through the door seal

 

[Will12283]

I'm on the lookout for a cheap fridge as this is the next thing in my list.

Looks good if mine looks that good will be happy

 

[Camberwell Canary]

It was worth taking time to make that solid shelf. The glass one wouldn't last long. Measured it carefully and it's perfectly flush with the plastic over the compressor.

Ceiling joist offcuts are the way to go. Really solid!

The temperature seems stuck at 17C at the moment. Maybe give it some time. Have set the controller to 20C (diff 0.5C). It says it's heating...

 

[PD]

you might be better standing the heater on the floor, that thick ceiling joist shelf will be absorbing a lot of the heat direct from the heater.
A thinner shelf ( say 18mm thick chipboard is more than adequate ) with a few 22mm holes drilled in it to allow the hot air to flow around the whole fridge space.

 

[Camberwell Canary]

Argh the heat output on my stc 1000 isn't working.

Heater fine if you hook it straight up to the mains. Fridge comes on when attached to the stc 1000 and you set the target temperature low.

Will have to send it back. How irritating. Bad cedaronics....

 

[PD]

you sure its set to heating not cooling ?

 

[Camberwell Canary]

Apologies to cedaronics... I didn't notice the green power switch on the side, which is independent of the controller (controller has its own power switch).

Have switched on and it appears to be working now (would be helpful if they labelled it so you could see when it's on and off).

 

[PD]

he hee that's caught me out a time or two

 

[Camberwell Canary]

What margin do you set the stc 1000 to? I suspect 0.5C is too small. Too small and it cycles too much (I guess possibly reducing the life of the fridge). Too large and it defeats the object of the fermentation fridge


CC

 

[PD]

mines set at 1C seems ok, especially for bottle conditioning, and I would think its good enough for fermentation vessel due to the large mass of liquid.
Others will disagree

 

[jonnymorris]

Mine's set to 0.5 but then again the fridge is rarely called upon to cool so its just the heater that switches on and off.

 

[rpt]

I run both the heater power cable and the probe cable through the door seal, so I have made no modifications to the fridge. I have the margin set to its lowest i.e. 0.3C. The fridge is protected by the STC-1000's compressor delay of 3 minutes, although in practice it doesn't come on that often.

 

[Cedaronics]

Cedaronics say, 'Cedaronics good.' :)

Yes, the isolator switch could give the impression that no power is being delivered. Indeed, that was the idea. Shows you the current temp. without power output.

Tim

 

[PD]

Its a great idea........




when you remember...........

 

[AndyW]

Hi,

Do all STC-1000 automatically heat and cool as appropriate or do they have to be set to heat or cool. I have bought a cheap looky likey from Ebay but it only has one relay output and has to be set to heat or cool.
PDs comment suggests they need to be set.
thanks

AndyW

 

[PD]

I have a single output unit, and that has to be set for either the heating or cooling cycle, as I found out after 3 hours of frustration and a quick phone call to the ever helpful Tim.

 

[Cedaronics]

PD's unit is not an STC, it's a TLZ-11.

PD's - you set the function yourself, with STCs it detects what it needs to do.

 

[PD]

aah.....