Thermoelectric wine cooler drying and curing - DIY

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
Wow!!! That's amazing. Now run off to Amazon and getcha another dehumidifier and inkbird. Haha
STOP reading my mind. Actually having just bought a brand new fridge because of how much I hated my Samsung it has no place to keep my wine unlike my 30 y/o GE the Samsung replaced. So for the time being I'm going to house my wine bottles in there. I know I know using something for its intended purpose is pretty radical of me
 

smoke and coke

Well-Known Member
I sent koolatron an email.

Koolatron 20 Bottle Wine Cooler, Black Dual-Unit Thermoelectric Wine Fridge, 1.7 cu. ft. (48L), Freestanding
Will this unit return to the set temperature after a power outage or does it return to the default setting?
I was set for 60 degrees f. and had an outage. When power came back on, Celsius was displayed and the set temperature was 55 degrees.

Thank you

the reply

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. Our team is working diligently to answer emails as quickly and efficiently as possible; however due to the unusually high volume of calls and emails, we are experiencing significant delays. We apologize for the inconvenience and delays incurred. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

When the WC20 loses power it would revert back to the default settings.

So it appears if you have a power outage, you will need to reset the temperature to what it was when power is restored.
Sent from my iPad
 

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
I sent koolatron an email.

Koolatron 20 Bottle Wine Cooler, Black Dual-Unit Thermoelectric Wine Fridge, 1.7 cu. ft. (48L), Freestanding
Will this unit return to the set temperature after a power outage or does it return to the default setting?
I was set for 60 degrees f. and had an outage. When power came back on, Celsius was displayed and the set temperature was 55 degrees.

Thank you

the reply

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. Our team is working diligently to answer emails as quickly and efficiently as possible; however due to the unusually high volume of calls and emails, we are experiencing significant delays. We apologize for the inconvenience and delays incurred. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

When the WC20 loses power it would revert back to the default settings.

So it appears if you have a power outage, you will need to reset the temperature to what it was when power is restored.
Sent from my iPad
Good looking out! Thank you so much for sharing that.
 

Hook Daddy

Well-Known Member
I sent koolatron an email.

Koolatron 20 Bottle Wine Cooler, Black Dual-Unit Thermoelectric Wine Fridge, 1.7 cu. ft. (48L), Freestanding
Will this unit return to the set temperature after a power outage or does it return to the default setting?
I was set for 60 degrees f. and had an outage. When power came back on, Celsius was displayed and the set temperature was 55 degrees.

Thank you

the reply

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. Our team is working diligently to answer emails as quickly and efficiently as possible; however due to the unusually high volume of calls and emails, we are experiencing significant delays. We apologize for the inconvenience and delays incurred. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

When the WC20 loses power it would revert back to the default settings.

So it appears if you have a power outage, you will need to reset the temperature to what it was when power is restored.
Sent from my iPad
I guess when I had my power outages was during my earlier runs. If I recall I was trying out lower temps like 55f at first, so maybe just never noticed since default was my temp setting. I have had it revert to Celsius and assumed power went out briefly but maybe it just reverted itself without changing temp. Good to know, we do loose power frequently here. Although I don’t have the dual unit, maybe a different controller? Now I’ll have to go check myself.
 

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
I guess when I had my power outages was during my earlier runs. If I recall I was trying out lower temps like 55f at first, so maybe just never noticed since default was my temp setting. I have had it revert to Celsius and assumed power went out briefly but maybe it just reverted itself without changing temp. Good to know, we do loose power frequently here. Although I don’t have the dual unit, maybe a different controller? Now I’ll have to go check myself.
Dual unit, you say?
 

Hook Daddy

Well-Known Member
Dual unit, you say?
I was just reading the description on @smoke and coke’s post, it says Black Dual-Unit Thermoelectric, I thought it was perhaps a different model, but the model number is the same as mine. My description never said dual unit. It must mean there are two physical TEC units, just not controlled separately. Anyhow I unplugged mine and let it sit a minute, then plugged back in, and it did indeed default back to 55f.
 

smoke and coke

Well-Known Member
I got some cooling racks today to make some flat shelves. Try and find something exact size to replace the wine shelves may be impossible. So I got 6 cooling racks and the wife said she will use the extra one for cookies. Win win for me anyway, I might have to order pie and cake pans and tell her they were extra parts. I put 2 shelves together tonight, gotta love Amazon, ordered last night and got this evening. The top shelf I made a little long to reach the back of the unit and the 2nd shelf is shorter because the fan is there. Used cable ties to secure and then cut off the excess on the back.These things are solid.

IMG_0417.jpegIMG_0419.jpegIMG_0420.jpegIMG_0418.jpeg
 

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
I got some cooling racks today to make some flat shelves. Try and find something exact size to replace the wine shelves may be impossible. So I got 6 cooling racks and the wife said she will use the extra one for cookies. Win win for me anyway, I might have to order pie and cake pans and tell her they were extra parts. I put 2 shelves together tonight, gotta love Amazon, ordered last night and got this evening. The top shelf I made a little long to reach the back of the unit and the 2nd shelf is shorter because the fan is there. Used cable ties to secure and then cut off the excess on the back.These things are solid.

View attachment 5319648View attachment 5319649View attachment 5319650View attachment 5319651
I'm looking for some of the baking pan racks that will fit from side to side. Then I'll use my grinder and take off the ends to shorten them is my plan! Looks like you are making good progress too. I got my dehumidifier placed today and all drilling done, wires soldered, connected and functioning. Now I need to mount the inkbird, it's sensor and use some silicone to fill in the hole and button the back up.

I'm hoping to get that done tomorrow but who knows we are currently enjoyings a flood out here. Thanks Hilary.
 

Vonkins

Well-Known Member
What's the ideal humidity setting for that perfect cure. I've been set at 62% w/ 1% humidity difference for several days now. Buds are still not firm as id like. This is day 11. I dropped it to 60% on the inkbird
 

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
View attachment 5322261

There's another tray of Cannarado White Papaya I placed in there. I decided not to wait on my new perforated sheet stainless steel shelves so a 9x12 bakers rack and cookie sheet will do. It's easily holding 61-60 temp and humidity. We'll see the 24 hour chart.
Update over the past 36 hours it's holding within 2% of 60% and staying within 1 degree of 60F. It smells so good!
 

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
I don't know that you'd see that much difference. But I'm pretty lazy and also curious (a terrible combo) so I just set it at what I want to see at the end and see if it struggled to get there. I also had it running for about a week prior so it wasn't struggling to reach it's set temp/humidity it had been there for awhile.

It didn't even blink when I loaded and stayed close. Then again I have 1 smaller plant in there for a test. So we'll see when I load it with the rest of the table when my shelving arrives.
 

Togs

Active Member
I don't know that you'd see that much difference. But I'm pretty lazy and also curious (a terrible combo) so I just set it at what I want to see at the end and see if it struggled to get there. I also had it running for about a week prior so it wasn't struggling to reach it's set temp/humidity it had been there for awhile.

It didn't even blink when I loaded and stayed close. Then again I have 1 smaller plant in there for a test. So we'll see when I load it with the rest of the table when my shelving arrives.
Nice!
All my shelves were full at start. Just the water puddling at the bottom of the unit was a concern. So I went with a 5% swing to have the dehumidifier staying off longer. Even when I changed the level of the unit from front to back an introduced positive pitch so the water would make its way down the channels to the drain hole it just sits there :shock: weird. Seems to be drying up nicely tho.
 

smoke and coke

Well-Known Member
I finished my build last weekend and did a dry test run. I won’t have anything to put in it until mid October so all I can do is play with it. I mounted the inkbird controller and sensor with Velcro. I decided to make the dehumidifier plug more permanent. Thinking now about how to increase the number of shelves.
I also changed the orange wire nuts in the first photo to crimp connector plugs. Didn’t get a pic of that change.

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