Fisher and Paykel Active smart Fermentation chanber, keep the freezer

[Ricky White]

Hi All,

I managed to make the Activesmart (early model) fridge freezer act as a fermentation chamber but kept the freezer functionality via a pretty small modification and an STC1000.

I put a quick video up on youtube.

I should work for most activesmart fridges as I got the circuit diagram from a different model, probably same control box/wireing across lots of models.

A made a few mistakes in my voice commentary but just putting the information out there in case it helps someone with a similar fridge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2pzDDjFR9U

[Ricky White]

Definitely glad I finally did this.

Much nicer to see a more controlled/restrained fermentation at this time of the year.

I have my third all grain batch fermenting with US-05.

Much better than letting it run at room temperature at this time of the year in Napier.

18C and the top freezer is still doing a good job of keeping bread,veges and chips etc frozen.

The compressor doesn't run excessively, it just works fine :-), I just need to build a shelf to support bucket fermenters

This conversion method is likely to work for other fridges that use NTC thermisters rather than basic thermostats although you might need to choose different resistor values.

I have had this working for over a week now and finally put this brew in a couple of days ago.

I still have a test thermometer monitoring freezer and fridge and Im confident the freezer section is stable.  It even obeys the fridges microcontroller to set the freezer temperature.

My modification basically tells the fridge microcontroller it is either -4C or 25C so the fridge controller still handles defrost and compressor protection etc.

[DMAC]

Choice. Nice way to override the temp control system.