cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/53334380
My fridge (Zanussi Z19/4D) quit working. The compressor and relay are both fine. I hotwired the relay and bypassed the thermostat. So I can force the fridge to run on demand using a switch.
Either the thermostat is broken, or some mystery component attached to the thermostat is broken. These parts are no longer sold for my model. Amazon sells “universal” thermostats cheaply, but I boycott Amazon. In fact, I try to boycott banks too so I don’t shop online generally. In the off chance that a 230v universal thermostat were sold locally, I still don’t know if it solves my problem.
So what can I do with this fridge? I could put a timer on it and set it to run 1 hr/day, or something. Is it worth it? I suppose a timer would not be accurate enough to use for food. Temps would probably be unstable. But I wonder if it’d be good for keeping wine or beer slightly chilled. Someone persnickety enough to want a wine cooler might not like the temp fluctuations a timer would bring.
Might it make sense to pull it out for parties and have it continuously run to keep drinks cold? Or would they freeze?
These use-cases don’t really interest me directly. I prefer beer nearly room temp anyway. But I’m just looking for ideas maybe to pawn the thing off onto someone else to prevent waste.
Should I trash it? I would likely harvest the working compressor in that case, but then do what with that? I could look for a trashed fridge that just needs a compressor, but I have never plumbed a compressor and messed with coolant. Can a novice handle that?
I put a timer power switch on my old mini beer fridge that has its thermostat break, and just assisted that until the internal temp was what i wanted without freezing my beers.
I used a temperature controller to regulate temps for a freezer I turned into a kegerator. It was a Johnson Controls model, iirc. Not sure what similar options would be outside the US though, if that’s a thing for you.
Maybe check out a local home brewing shop? Looks like on average, prices range anywhere from $50-$500US depending on how fancy you want to get.