Any Fridge / Aircon techies here??

check out the thermostats and ceramic bulbs available for reptile heating.
quite simple to hook up

Thanks for the alternative ideas guys. I still would like to hear from someone in the refrigeration game though.
I remember years ago there were reverse cycle fridges that were called Auto-Defrost.
I would have thought that 38 degrees C would be an easy temp to achieve as it is well within the range of temps that the condenser coils on the back of the fridge attain.
I should also make clear that this reversal will be permanent, so no need to allow for true reverse cycling.
Would not reversing the flow of refrigerant (and the TX valve) to make the coil on the back become the evaporator, do the trick?

OK OK I'm convinced Don't be offended Ashore, I do believe you.

I had a Fish & Chip shop at one point in my long life. The display fridge evaporator coil went U/S and had to be replaced. The fridgie pumped all the gas into some part of the unit then sealed the pipe, replaced the evap. (s/solder) evacuated the section and released the gas again. From memory it required a small top-up.
There was no acid wash . Sounds like it was a bum job from what you say.

I'll look into the home brew heater. The reptile heaters are a bit big for her little foam incubator.

Thanks gents.

I use a waterbed heater to germinate seedlings. I brought two of them from our recycling shop shop for $10,they both came with the thermostats too. I reckon these would work you too,

try http://www.refrigerationengineer.com. Its the same format as this forum. What you want can be done, but safety first,you have to know what your doing.

regards

gravy

Fridgey here.

Firstly there is no tx valve in a domestic fridge.

The old cyclic defrost fridges used a hot gas defrost not a reversing valve.

No need to do an acid decontamination because we were purging with nitro weren't we, Ashore?

Its possible to do, personally i wouldnt bother but it's certainly possible.

If I were doing it i'd swap the suction discharge lines on the compressor, put a new drier in, throw in a couple of service ports and go from there. depending on the type of evap coil inside, i'd probably change it to a copper fan coil. The old aluminium plate coils don't like being run at discharge pressure very long.

I'd also be looking at a small fan coil for the outside coil. the passive condensers on new fridges are usually inside the shell so it depends on what sort of fridge you are converting.

Oh, and don't forget to put a reverse acting thermostat on as well.

Thanks Timmo Gravy & others.

There is a council pick-up coming in a couple of weeks, so I'll be out there looking for an old bar fridge.
Worth a try even if it doesn't work in the end.

Cheers.