My goodness people. 12 hours of discussion and people are arguing about if it's actually more efficient or the best thermostat to use.
The reason no one wants a "chest freezer" style fridge (which the author of the article advocates) is because it's a pain the back to get stuff in and out, not to mention organizing your food.
Yes, this is great for home-brewing. But nobody should kid themselves that regular people would want this to replace their "normal" upright fridges.
Lots of homebrew supply shops sell affordable, hobbyist thermostats to put between your chest freezer and the electrical outlet, or, with more work, to replace the freezer's built-in thermostat, in either case converting the freezer into a fridge. Good for lagering or serving small (~5 gal) kegs.
The article mentions that condensation collects on the bottom and has to be sponged out. It seems like what's missing is a system to deal with condensation.
Hang on, how is it we've spent hours arguing over thermostats, and no one has mentioned this is the work of dr tom chalko inventor of the cancer curing bioresonant t-shirt: https://bioresonant.com/tshirts.html
as seen in the authors head shot at the end of the pdf.
that's no mere dead head tie dye you're seeing folks
Abstract:
"This article describes a household refrigerator that requires about 0.1 kWh per day to operate. The refrigerator offers excellent food-preserving performance, because temperature fluctuations in its interior are naturally minimized during everyday use. This fridge is 10 to 20 times more energy efficient than typical household fridges on the market today. It seems that the biggest obstacles in increasing the energy efficiency and food- preserving performance of household refrigerators are strange human habits and lack of understanding of Nature, not technology or cost."
"Vertical doors in refrigeration devices are inherently inefficient. As soon as we open a vertical fridge door – the cold air escapes, simply because it is heavier than the warmer air in the room."
Okay, so the author proposes that the thermal losses from the cold air being replaced with ambient air make up for the hundreds of extra kWh/year consumed by a vertical fridge.
While chest freezers typically have better thermal insulation and larger evaporators than fridges...
So shouldn't we be comparing a chest fridge to a vertical fridge with a comparable insulation system and condenser/evaporator capacity before declaring that lower air losses are the reason chest fridges work better?
Just make sure to get a freezer with a drain plug. They are normally used for defrosting. "Some GE and HP chest freezers have a convenient drain at the front with hose adaptor. Check Owner's Manual for specific model information. Download a copy of the Owner's Manual." http://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-support-searc...
Non-PDF Google Cache Copy (for people like me, who don't like clicking on unknown PDFs):
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_wPrLjU...
Missing the diagrams of the circuits but totally readable.
I'm struggling to find the reason for the battery backup / UPS. It has to be charged occasionally by the system, so doesn't make it's consumption zero standby... Why not drive the circuit directly from the A/C via a DC transformer? Is it to keep the memory of the last cycle to not over cycle the compressor?
An easier way could be to take a fridge and lay it horizontally.
Why doesn't anybody sell this in shops?
As someone who has done it.
TL;DR; How
Have zero knowledge about anything.
Buy part on eBay.
Spend 5 mins double checking what to do. Spend 30 seconds replacing part.
Because this is done by a lot of homebrewers, easy and lots of info out there.
TL;DR; Why, if not for homebrew.
Because a fridge will lose a lot of air when opening. 600 liters of air weights 600 grams. This ~ needs to be re-chilled on each opening.
Or there's this article about how to change the temperature range of a chest freezer with one simple screw adjustment.[1] Or this off the shelf external mechanical thermostat.[2] Designing your own analog electronic thermostat is not really necessary.
[1] http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=249612 [2] https://www.amazon.com/Johnson-Controls-A19AAT-2C-Temperatur...