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Just an update, The thermostat arrived from Pex supply. I found and bought a nice little 5cf freezer on craigs list for $75. Looked unused until I dropped it off the hand truck while loading it into my truck, now it has that baja used look, but it still funtions fine. Now All I have to do is wire up the thermostat and plug it in and see what happens. More later.
Larry

If you can, take some photos of the steps along the way. Would like to see them...

Well so far nothing to take pictures of, but the next step is to wire up the thermostat so it will control the freezer. I can draw up a diagram or something for that. I think the simplest way to wire it up is to just use an extension cord and split it. The male end of the cord will plug into a 120v wall outlet and go to the thermostat and the female end comes out of the thermostat and the freezer plugs into that. So no alterations to the freezer whatsoever, and the thermostat just mounts on the wall near the "freezer" now "beercooler". It'll be a few days till I can get to it. My wife has me doing "honeydo's" and this time it is laminate flooring in the whole house. Pulling up old carpet is no fun.
Larry

Look forward to seeing how it comes out...

You deserve COLD beer, pulling carpet up.. Oh my ... waiting for the report .. on the beer

Yesterday I had a chance to look at the paper work that came with the thermstat, 8 pages of instructions. It was a little confusing, but after looking at it, it started to make sense. The wiring is pretty straight forward. Just 120v going into the thermstat and 120v coming out to the freezer. There are some "jumpers" that can be set, but the factory defaults are what I used. Next is to set the temps to turn on and off the freezer. Using the key pad on the thermostat, I set it to come on at 42 degrees and a 5 degree differential temp which means it will go off at 37 dgrees. There is a digital temperature readout on the thermostat so you can monitor the internal temp of the freezer/refer, and a green light on the thermostat comes on when power is applied the the freezer.
When I first plugged it in the display on the thermostat flashed for about 30 seconds and then the green light came on and I heard the freezer start its cooling cycle. It started out at 74 degrees, but in less that 6 minutes it was down to 37 degrees and the thermostat turned the freezer off. I had put 2 cases of sodas and one case of water in the freezer that were at room temp so the off cycle didn't last too long. That was yesterday. Now today the "off" cycle seems to last about 25 minutes, and the "on" lasts about 1.5 minutes. So basically it is on 3 minutes of every hour in the weather I have here in San Diego.
The real test will be once I get it to Bahia where it is really hot, also I have my "killawatt" meter down there so I can report on how much power this thing uses in a day. I am planning a trip down next week to do some fishing and diving so I will let you know then.
Larry

I remember reading on one of the sites where folks were trying this that you may have to play a bit with that temp cycle range to reach optimum conditions, and they may vary from summer to winter based on ambient temps. Look forward to hearing how it performs down in BOLA. That will be the REAL test...

Well, I finally did my summer Bahia trip. It was HOT! I set up the freezer in my garage, it was 104 in there during the day. I put in a case of beer, soda, and water, all warm. Turned it on and waited 24 hours. The Killawatt meter recorded .650kw. The second 24 hours it recorded .452kw. The freezer kept the drinks between 42 and 37 degrees. I put the probe in amongst the drinks to get a more accurate temp control. I expect that the consumption will drop significantly with a drop in ambient temperature, but even at .452kw that is not bad. My Sears refer in the house uses 2.98kw in the same 24 hour period when it is hot. And this system is alot cheaper than buying a propane unit, not to mention that it is not consuming any propane.
Larry

Less than half a kW a day in a 104 degree garage is incredible when you think about it. Any photos???

Man, you got this stuff down...