Construction complete!

Getting ready to commit to the project!

Drilling begins!

4" hole!

Tap tower installed.

First pint pulled. FTW!

Electronics to follow... Hopefully tonight.

Almost there!

Tomorrow is father's day. My gift to me will be to get the tower installed and get, at least temporarily, some temperature control going. When I get the boarduino from Solarobotics, I can solder everything together permanently. I can't wait to pull the first pint of Piratical Nerve from the tap.

HIGH VOLTAGE enclosure nearly complete.

The enclosure and the relay assembly, which still needs to be installed.

5Volt power supply

Power in

And power out. This is the business end of the high voltage enclosure. The outlet is switched by the system to keep the chest freezer at a constant temperature!

Finished temp probe

Heat shrink and a stereo plug make for a finished temp probe.

Tap Handle

Last night I made a simple tap handle for the one faucet on the tower. I will make some "Tap boards" for the faucets once all 3 are installed.

Kegerator tower starts to take shape

Nothing beats a Forstner bit for making perfectly smooth holes.

I used a 1" bit to drill the first hole in the 4" diameter tower.

I plan to use sheets of foam to insulate the inside of the tower and eventually add a temperature probe at the top that will switch on a fan to blow cool air from the main chamber up into the tower to help cool the lines.

Then I put the faucet and shank that I've had for over 10 years in the hole and snugged it up. As I get more faucets and shanks I will drill and mount them. I think this tower can hold 3 faucets which is convenient since the chest freezer can only hold 3 Corny kegs.

Making the temperature probe

I'm making the temperature probe to go in the main body of the freezer out of

• 4 feet of cat 5 cable
• 1 LM-34 temp sensor
• 1 3 inch length of 3/8 inch copper tube
• Electrical tape
• JB Weld

I started by unjacketing the cat 5 and untwisting one pair (orange). I then retwisted the solid orange onto the blue - blue/white pair.

Next I soldered the wires to the legs of the LM-34 and TESTED it. I've built stuff like this in the past and not tested it before I commited to making it a permanent installation. Bad idea.

Then I wrapped the legs in electrical tape and dry fitted it in the tube

Next I mixed up some JB weld and slathered it over the sensor and pulled it back into the tube. I then scooped more JB weld into the end of the tube, taped both ends and hung it up to set overnight. I'll fill the tube completely in the morning with thinned JB weld and then let it rest 24 hours before I'll deem it "ready."