# Dome Wine Cooler Fridge



## benny_bjc (8/1/10)

Hello All,

I have purchased a Dome Wine Cooler. I hope I have made the right choice!

It is not actually going to be used for wine, but instead cheese making and possibly aging my coopers vintage and the likes, both requiring around 15 degrees Celcius.

The manual states the fridge set to high ranges between 14-16 degrees. The fridge will turn on as such when it reaches 16 and cool down.
The lower settings range between 9-14 degrees.

Anyway I have had the fridge on for a couple days at the high setting and realised that the thermometer has gone up to about 19 degrees and the fan is constantly running. So now I have set the fridge to low and it is still hanging around the 18 - 19 range.

I will leave it for at least over night at low setting to see if the temperature drops, but in meantime has anyone else bought this particular fridge or similar and have you experienced anything like this? 

Thanks heaps.


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## benny_bjc (9/1/10)

beer007 said:


> Hello All,
> 
> I have purchased a Dome Wine Cooler. I hope I have made the right choice!
> 
> ...



3 nights and 2 days turned on. The thermometer still reads 18 degrees.

On the coolest setting the temperature should be 9 degrees. The fridge starts cooling once it reaches 10.5 degrees.
On highest Setting the temperature should be 14-16. The fridge starts cooling once it reaches 16 degrees.

The cooling fan is going full capacity day and night but no drop in temperature.

I'm returning the wine cooler and hoping to find one that actually works.


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## SpillsMostOfIt (9/1/10)

I have one of these I bought several years ago (and don't currently use). It was no refrigerator, but happily kept my ales at 16-18degC while the indoor temperature was sub-twenty-five-ish (which it almost always was in my air-conditioned tower). I once did something at 12 or so, but that was also in cooler weather from memory.

I wouldn't bother trying to use one where I am now, where the temperature inside the brewery is currently 38.5degC...


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## T.D. (9/1/10)

Yeah these things are highly dependent on surrounding ambient temperatures. I have one that I use as a fermenting fridge. My one is "Rank Arena" brand but is probably identical by the sounds of it. In summer I set it to the lowest setting for fermenting ales and it maintains 18deg, but as soon as fermentation has subsided a bit it does drop to around 12deg. In winter on its lowest setting it will do around 9deg (moving up to 12 when fermentation - ie lager - is in full flight). Sounds a bit iffy that moving the dial from low to high makes no difference to your temp though, could be faulty...?


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## benny_bjc (11/1/10)

I have now returned it and got another one.

It has cooled down much better than the other unit did! but the fan is constantly running full capacity.

So this unit is definitely working better then the last but I'm concerned about the cooling fan being on constantly day and night - is this normal? I should think it would be using a hell of a lot of power constantly trying to cool down the cabinet by 1 or 2 degrees but only maintaining the temperature.

It is set to Low which is approx 9 - 10.5 degrees (at 10.5 degrees or above the unit starts cooling) The thermometer is reading about 11 degrees - so it only needs to drop down 0.5 - 1 degree for the fan / cooling unit to switch off.


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## QldKev (11/1/10)

Trying putting stuff in there; fridges find it hard to cool air. Fill it up with bottles and then worry if it doesn't maintain the temps. Not sure of the model you got is it a compressor or it it an adsorption style. Adsorption are generally inefficient, and I would not recommend it for use in the house. (only because a compressor fridge will be a lot cheaper to run, and will cool a lot better)


QldKev


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## benny_bjc (11/1/10)

QldKev said:


> Trying putting stuff in there; fridges find it hard to cool air. Fill it up with bottles and then worry if it doesn't maintain the temps. Not sure of the model you got is it a compressor or it it an adsorption style. Adsorption are generally inefficient, and I would not recommend it for use in the house. (only because a compressor fridge will be a lot cheaper to run, and will cool a lot better)
> 
> 
> QldKev



I think it is thermoelectric??


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## QldKev (11/1/10)

beer007 said:


> I think it is thermoelectric??




Ouch worse still. Something to think about is they will never be a super environment for cooling. Thermoelectric aka Peltier devices are at best about 10% efficient, where as a normal compressor fridge will run at up to 60%. I do have a small thermoelectric fridge in my car, but never would leave it running for long as it drains the battery hard. If you plan on running this 24/7 I would consider taking it back and getting a compressor fridge setup.

QldKev


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## superdave (11/1/10)

Peltier (thermoelectric) is the most common method of cooling for wine cabinets (no vibration).
I have a small one I use to brew ales in (freebee). If you want the temperature to drop faster freeze some softdrink bottles and put them in there. I can get my wort down to the required temperature over night ready for pitching.


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