Cheap Temperature Controller... Which One?

[waggastew]

From my understanding the tempmate only turns on the fridge when the temp gets too high. Therefore, as long as you have it set higher than 4degC it will use less electricity than under normal conditions. If you are fermenting an ale at 18degC it should use much less.

I am in the process of swtiching from ice bottled to a fridge/temp/mate/right etc. The cost of running the fridge will be offset somewhat by the power that used to be used freezing the ice bottles for my old system. Add to that the time spent changing bottles and the ability to ferment lager outside June/July and its a no brainer for me.

At the risk of asking an idiotic question,, :huh: I'll do it anyhow,,,,,,

Has anybody done the research into how much power is consumed by a fridge with a tempright, compared to one without it?

I was thinkin that a tempright fridge set at say,,,,,18C would not be working as hard as one running normally.

Just weighing up the options of getting one of these setups compared to using a non-working fridge with bottles of ice for fermeter temp control..

 

[QldKev]

Just Thought i'd show off my 3 that control my HERMS system
I have a dedicated 20A socked in the garage feeding this as i have 2 2200 Watt elements running off it.

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Nice and neat setup. Wish I had a dedicated 20amp line. Only question I have is you have a fan to turn over air, which is an excellent idea, but where does the air exit?

QldKev

 

[Ivan Other One]

From my understanding the tempmate only turns on the fridge when the temp gets too high. Therefore, as long as you have it set higher than 4degC it will use less electricity than under normal conditions. If you are fermenting an ale at 18degC it should use much less.

I am in the process of swtiching from ice bottled to a fridge/temp/mate/right etc. The cost of running the fridge will be offset somewhat by the power that used to be used freezing the ice bottles for my old system. Add to that the time spent changing bottles and the ability to ferment lager outside June/July and its a no brainer for me.

Yep,, Was thinking along the same lines as far as running costs go.

Also the convenience of a set and forget system would be far better than constantly changing ice bottles(PITA).

Cheers Mate.

 

[[email protected]]

Nice and neat setup. Wish I had a dedicated 20amp line. Only question I have is you have a fan to turn over air, which is an excellent idea, but where does the air exit?

QldKev

Good question, i had actually purchased 2 fans one to draw air in and one to push air out but the second doesn't fit. So at present the fan and pushing air out and air is being sucked in from gaps around the switches and temp controllers. But you just gave me an idea of just cutting another hole and putting the second fan air filter cover over it so air can be drawn in from there.

 

[dr K]

What you find is these temperature controllers don't work and neither does your fridge or the light or whatever you use to heat it.
They sit there drawing 3 W of power.
I have about 3 running fridges and most of the time they are neither heating nor cooling and this is with a 0.5C dtemperature differnce , ie 1C range, during rapid early fermentation the fridge might kick on very occasionally and towards the end the light might, but thats about it. Closed sytems and screw all power !!

K

 

[michael_aussie]

At the risk of asking an idiotic question,, :huh: I'll do it anyhow,,,,,,

Has anybody done the research into how much power is consumed by a fridge with a tempright, compared to one without it?

I was thinkin that a tempright fridge set at say,,,,,18C would not be working as hard as one running normally.

Just weighing up the options of getting one of these setups compared to using a non-working fridge with bottles of ice for fermeter temp control..

I don't think that's an idiotic question Ivan.

I haven't done any research, but I'll bet my left one on two statements:

1. A fridge running on an external controller at 18C will use less juice than the same fridge running normally at a lower temperature. The amount of power consumed is directly related to the difference between the ambient temp and the temperature you want in your fridge. The bigger the difference, the more power this takes. How you control your fridge will have negligible impact.

2. Using an existing freezer to generate ice versus running a separate old fridge with a controller is a different matter. This will depend on the efficiency of your existing freezer versus the efficiency of the fermenter fridge. However, transferring ice is a difficult way to achieve the accuracy in temperature control that you will get with a dedicated controller, not to mention the pain in the arse factor in having to check temperatures and transfer ice all the time. A no brainer in my book. If the fermenter fridge works splash out and get a temperature controller to achieve the temperature you are chasing.

 

[QldKev]

I don't think that's an idiotic question Ivan.

I haven't done any research, but I'll bet my left one on two statements:

1. A fridge running on an external controller at 18C will use less juice than the same fridge running normally at a lower temperature. The amount of power consumed is directly related to the difference between the ambient temp and the temperature you want in your fridge. The bigger the difference, the more power this takes. How you control your fridge will have negligible impact.

2. Using an existing freezer to generate ice versus running a separate old fridge with a controller is a different matter. This will depend on the efficiency of your existing freezer versus the efficiency of the fermenter fridge. However, transferring ice is a difficult way to achieve the accuracy in temperature control that you will get with a dedicated controller, not to mention the pain in the arse factor in having to check temperatures and transfer ice all the time. A no brainer in my book. If the fermenter fridge works splash out and get a temperature controller to achieve the temperature you are chasing.

Agree with Michael's feeedback but would like to add with point 2. I think there will be additional energy (coolness) lost every time you open the freezer door to get your ice out; and then the fridge/cool box to add the ice. So based on this additional info, I believe a dead fridge with ice block would work out to be more inefficient.

As michael also mentioned the other benefit of using a decent fridge/freezer with a controller is a more constant temp, and no hit n miss temperature game with manually screwing around with ice. These last 2 points alone make my decision.

Kev