kegerator bent freezer tray cover

General Homebrew Discussion
1

Hello,
I recently built a kegerator, and it seems to be running pretty well, as far as keeping the beer cold and everything working. I used a sanyo 4.4 cu ft mini fridge, which works well once I bent the freezer tray down.
My problem is that it seems like bending the freezer tray disrupts the fridge’s cooling ability, because its always running.
I don’t really care about the stock thermostat not working properly, because I already got an external STC-1000 temperature controller.
(Even before I installed it, I was able to turn the stock thermostat down to “min” and get to 40 degrees.)

It seems like the freezer tray is intended to be frosted over in order to properly/efficiently work. It seems that normally the stock fridge achieves this by the plastic trays below the evaporator tray and the freezer cover, but these were removed to fit the keg.
On my kegerator, the evaporator tray has nothing to shield it. It gets really cold, frosts over a little bit, then the evaporator turns off when it hits the right temp, and all the frost melts. This also causes a lot of water to drip down to the bottom of the fridge, and the drain hole can sometimes gets frozen over and does not drain.
bottom line: I really don’t want to spend an extra $200/month to power the fridge. (i dont know how much it actually is)

I’ve seen many posts talking about installing/building an external temperature controller, but I haven’t seen anything about making a cover for the bent evaporator tray. I would think it would shield the rest of the fridge from the freezing temps of the evaporator tray, and also allow the evaporator tray to freeze over and work more efficiently. (Just a guess)

Has anyone tried installing one?
If so, did it affect the ability to store kegs/Co2 tank in the fridge?

I’m new to this forum, so please forgive me for any mistakes I make posting.

2

I’m not sure but is it possible in bending the tray you knocked something associated with the thermostat, condenser, etc.? and now it runs all the time?

Your post was a bit confusing, do you have an external controller for this unit? If not I would suggest it to prevent the chance of freezing your beer. Also, I believe that yes, the ice tray area is what creates the cold for the freezer.

If your drain hole is freezing over then most likely you will need the external controller to prevent the unit from actually getting to freezing temps or create some sort of small baffle to keep the hole open.

3

I did the same thing you describe, years ago.

After bending the freezer portion down, the fridge never worked properly again.  It would cool when first turned on, but never cycle back on after it hit the set point.

It never made a whole lot of sense to me why it would not work, but it wasn’t worth figuring out at the time.

If it’s icing up as you describe, it sounds like either there’s a kink in the lines restricting the flow of freon or something like that.  Or it’s running too long and not cycling properly.

4

My first thought was an air flow issue.  No experience with this issue but a small CPU fan continuously moving air might help.

Paul