Wine cooler to beer cooler conversion

[Sous]

So, my wife and I moved in to our home about 1.5 years ago and it is a great place to live. The kitchen was redone before we moved in, and included in it was an under the counter wine cooler about the size of a dishwasher. The problem is that wine is cooled to a different temperature than beer, which is what we use it for, beer just fits better in the cooler.

So, I plan to bypass and hard wire the internal thermostat, then install an external thermostat which allows adjustability all the way down to 0 degrees or so. Has anyone used one of these before?

The description states that there is no reason to hard wire the internal thermostat if you cooler will go below the desired temperature, but since ours will only get down to 50 degrees, I must disable the internal. Otherwise the internal would shut down the cooling process before it got down to 38 degrees or so, which is where I want it.

Amazon.com: Johnson Controls A19AAT-2C Freezer Temperature Controller: Kitchen & Dining

 

[SKECHE]

nope....good luck..

 

[Sous]

So I removed the wine cooler from its home under the counter top and cut up the wiring last night. I was lucky enough to have a wiring diagram mounted to the back directly from the manufacturer. I hooked it up so that the condenser would run constantly as long as it was plugged in and let it sit for about an hour. It went from room temperature down to 35 degrees. I figured that was a good test. Now I am going to order and install the external thermostat which will control the power to the condenser and regulate the temperature within 4 degrees of where I have it set.

Now I will have a beer cooler set to just above freezing, which is the sweet spot for beer in my opinion.

Here is a picture of the cooler in case anyone else ever thought about doing a similar modification.

 

[NickSully]

Nice job! I'll have to keep my eye out for something like this now for my home.

 

[Twobrothersbusa]

What do you do in the AF? Are you still active duty?

So I removed the wine cooler from its home under the counter top and cut up the wiring last night. I was lucky enough to have a wiring diagram mounted to the back directly from the manufacturer. I hooked it up so that the condenser would run constantly as long as it was plugged in and let it sit for about an hour. It went from room temperature down to 35 degrees. I figured that was a good test. Now I am going to order and install the external thermostat which will control the power to the condenser and regulate the temperature within 4 degrees of where I have it set.

Now I will have a beer cooler set to just above freezing, which is the sweet spot for beer in my opinion.

Here is a picture of the cooler in case anyone else ever thought about doing a similar modification.

 

[Sous]

I am a 3D and specialize in tactical comms. I am still active duty and am at 17 years and 35 days today.

 

[sportcustoms71]

cool, my wife wouldn't let me do that though her being a full blooded italian.....take that woman's whine away from her and all hell would brake loose

 

[dadofthree]

you just gonna replace the thermostat

 

[Sous]

you just gonna replace the thermostat

Yes, but there is a trick to it. The external thermostat is designed to cut power to a cooling unit that actually goes to a lower temperature than desired with a simple 0-7 dial. The problem with the wine cooler was that it only went down to about 52 degrees because of the internal thermostat setting the design to cool wine. Well, in order to get the beer down to the mid 30's, I had to disable/bypass the internal thermostat so that the condenser would run 24/7, but would be turned off by the external thermostat based on the precise setting I indicate.

So, when I set the external thermostat to 34 degrees, it will supply power to the cooler bringing it down to 34 and then shutting off power to the cooler. The cooler will turn back on at 38 degrees to again lower the temperature to 34. The cooler reached a lower 30's temperature in short time when I ran a test on it after bypassing the internal thermostat.

If this were a box freezer or something that went below 30 degrees, then yes, all you would need to do is plug the freezer into the external thermostat. Because the unit was not designed to go that low, I had to do a few more tricks to get it to cool the beer to a nice, nearly freezing temperature.