Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Wine Cooler
Some time last fall my wine cooler quit working. I bought it on the clearance rack at Lowe's for about $70 a couple of years ago. Since winter was coming I just left it in the garage because the temperatures were relatively cool. Now that the temperatures have warmed back up I decided to see if maybe just a fuse was blown. I pulled the back cover off and found the power supply board was fried -- more than just a blown fuse!
We figured out that the power supply converted 120VAC to 12VDC, and that we needed about 100 watts of power to run the cooler. John mentioned that he had multiple computer power supplies sitting around that would supply at least that much power on the 12V rail. Even though the original power supply did not have a fan cooling it, I decided to use the one from the computer power supply to hopefully keep the board cool. So, after hacking, whacking, and generally destroying a power supply and the back of the wine cooler, it looks like this.
I think the heat of the garage was too much for the little cooler, and that is why the power board burned up in the first place. Thus, we decided to relocate the cooler into the house. We decided to put it in the pantry, but there was no power outlet there. First step was to install an outlet (sort of visible behind the can of vegetable something to the right of the cooler) and then extend the shelf out.
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We figured out that the power supply converted 120VAC to 12VDC, and that we needed about 100 watts of power to run the cooler. John mentioned that he had multiple computer power supplies sitting around that would supply at least that much power on the 12V rail. Even though the original power supply did not have a fan cooling it, I decided to use the one from the computer power supply to hopefully keep the board cool. So, after hacking, whacking, and generally destroying a power supply and the back of the wine cooler, it looks like this.
I think the heat of the garage was too much for the little cooler, and that is why the power board burned up in the first place. Thus, we decided to relocate the cooler into the house. We decided to put it in the pantry, but there was no power outlet there. First step was to install an outlet (sort of visible behind the can of vegetable something to the right of the cooler) and then extend the shelf out.
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