Beer Forum

Alright, getting frustrated. I purchased a haier 4.6 cu ft mini fridge for conversion into a dual tap tower kegerator and am running into some difficulties. I now understand that you can not take the light buld socket out of line (after blowing multiple fuses) but after six hours of cruising forums I can not find anyone who has made one of these into a kegerator. My main question is can I drill through the top to place the towers and if so where? They look like they use the same model for their kegerator with a draft tower but I can not find where anyone has dissassembled this bad boy and after realizing that everything is glued together instead of screwed I understand why. When I turn it on the top of the fridge on the inside is evenly cool which worries me and leads me to the belief that there are cooling lines throughout but I can not do a corn starch and alcohol test because I can not get the darned things top off. I have already cut out the ribs and door to maximise space (and subsequently can not return to sears). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Gjoker321,
BN'er for life

I've heard of people drilling a very small hole just barely through the sheetmetal and poking around with a piece of wire to feel for tubes. This is still a pretty risky maneuver as the tubes can be welded/brazed right where you are drilling, but it may be the only choice you have. If you have one of those infared thermometers (or tape a regular digital thermometer probe to the surface inside and cover it with bubble wrap) you can see how the temp changes as the fridge operates on that surface. If the wall gets very cold quickly you probably have evaporator tubes through that wall, and if it gets slightly warmer (provided you insulate your thermometer from the air) then you may have condenser coils running through the outside wall (or it could just be heat transfer from a nearby set of coils). If it just gets gradually cooler until the fridge turns off then you may be safe, but again caution is your friend.

Maybe use a dremel cutting disk very slowly to cut out a circle (or square smaller than your final circle) so you can remove just the first piece of surface. Now, if it is brazed to the top layer you may just be SOL.

I have heard of spraying a fine mist over the top of the metal and then plugging the system in and see where it evaporates first... that will be the placement of the line.. the line creates heat and will evaporate the water faster in that location. Try that if you haven't already figured it out.

Better yet, use an old soldering iron to burn away the interior plastic so you can see if there are lines in your way. No chance of damaging the lines that way.

Use a mixture of corn starch and rubbing alcohol and rub it onto the top of the fridge and then turn it on...the part that dries first you do not want to drill into as this is where the coolant lines are located...