Quote:
Originally Posted by agmantoo
You can buy a controller off the internet that will control the on/off power for as little as $75 and accomplish the same thing. The savings will pay for the A/C.
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Nope.
I believer you are referring to this controller, which can be used to turn a freezer into a refrigerator. Used by beer brewers, or off grid folks to make a really low watt use fridge out of a chest freezer.
They do run just under 70 bucks at:
http://kegman.net/9025.html
However,
they will NOT work on a window air conditioner to make a walk in cooler, since you are trying to do about the opposite thing....which is FORCE the AC unit to keep running below it's normal factory settings....not shut off early, which is what beer brewers want out of a freezer....to NOT get below 32.
Window AC units cut out somewhere in the low 60's. The Samsung unit I have can't be set below 64 degrees. All window AC's use a "probe" set in the fins on the intake side of the evaporator coil ( the coil you see if you pull off the room side of the cover ) that measures room temp via the air it pulls in first that passes over the evaporator coil ( the cold coil ). Once room temp air measures whatever the manufacturer determines is the unit low setting, it shuts off...or at least the compressor does...the fan may keep running.
The way Coolbot works is it has it's own, separate thermostat,
AND a little heater wire you wrap around the sensor bulb on the AC. It "fools" the AC into thinking the room air is warmer than it ACTUALLY is by applying heat to that bulb, so the AC unit continues to run, and thus lowers the room temp below what the AC would otherwise do.
Once the room temp reaches whatever you set the Coolbot thermostat to, it then stops the heat going out to the AC sensor, and the unit THEN shuts off.
Also, you need to make sure you buy the brands of AC that Coolbot recommends, because some AC units also have a sensor for OUTSIDE temperatures, and simply won't run if the outside air temp is too low. I would imagine those are there so if you have a window AC sitting in the window during the winter and you set the house heat up to, say high 70's, and the window AC was set to low 70's, it won't kick on and run when it's 30 outside....locked into mortal combat with the house furnace, and only the power/gas company being the winner !
I just yesterday finished up the foam/fiberglass board of the inside of my walk in cooler, and my Coolbot is supposed to be here Thursday/Friday, so I'll test run it over the weekend, and report back how it works. I built a small, 6x6 cooler off the back of my garage to hang pork and beef when we do a home slaughter so we won't be at the mercy of mother nature so much for cooling. Got a hog we need to do next week, so I had to get on the stick and get this done.
