warming cabinet

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A warming cabinet made from polyisocyanurate insulation?
 
Just bringing this thread alive again - i have outgrown my Thornes warming cabinet, which ive been struggling with as it only really fits 2 buckets in at a time.

Last weekend I obtained an old chest freezer to freeze my super frames with before storing them for the winter. the freezer has a drain hole already built in which i think is ideal to pass cabling through to make it a heater, so I have 2 questions;

1. can anybody think of a good reason why i cant make the freezer a warming cabinet, and also use it as a freezer when required without having to remove the heater device?

2. I was going to use a tubular heater(Screwfix do one for £14.99), Im not sure the STC1000 is rated high enough to operate it so has anyone else managed to find a good thermostatic switch to run a tubular heater?
 
I suspect the heaters you are looking at are not designed to be frozen for periods of time therefore you may find they fail quicker (and in failure possible become dangerous?).
 
I have a 1000x500 cm heated greenhouse tray with built in thermostat. I use it for growing plants in the spring and have an insulated box for warming honey at other times. Works a treat and gets double the useage!
 
The Screwfix you mention is only 40w which will take ages to heat up a chest freezer; better to go for the largest you can fit in. It also has a built in thermostat which isn't ideal.

I went for this thermostat, saved wiring: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inkbird-Te...6&sr=1-1-fdbae751-0fa5-4c0f-900b-865654896618

perfect, that's a very neat unit and with a 10A output wont require a separate relay. Agree i need the biggest tubular heater i can fit in there - will keep looking for those.

My view is that those tubular heaters are used in greenhouses in freezing conditions so should hopefully put up with the 3 to 4 weeks i use it each year to freeze frames in hopefully
 
I have a 2' 120w greenhouse heater that works a treat but I would recommend installing some sort of fan (computer fans work well) to ensure good distribution of heat and no hot spots.

Ooooh just realised I've become a Drone :)
 
I have the same controller at Angry, with a vary speed fan plugged in to the cooling circuit (Amazon I think) and the temperature over set controller at 0.5C. Seems to work well in distributing the heat around as needed and avoided anything other than basic wiring!
 
I used a 100mm black orchard inlet fan (cant see specific model on amazon) plugged into a variable speed fan controller plug, plugged into the cooling circuit of the controller. not cheapest option, but my wiring and soldering are suspect and I'd rather not take the chance with unattended equipment (or that was the message given to me by SWMBO)
 
Thanks folks, all parts ordered so hopefully I can warm up larger quantities now. I’ll report back later in the year on the ability to use it as a freezer without removing the heater!!!
 
i use my airing cabinet where the house water storage tank resides. as long as the door's shut, i get about 38 to 40deg constant temp there.
 

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