Small forced air cooling units for custom serving fridge

[The Rev]

I'll be building a new bar in my living room as part of a remodel project, and want to put some taps in this time. While I could get a little kegerator to mount under-bar, the bar will be L shaped and I had this thought of building a custom fridge in the L, saving the straight sections of the bar for pint glasses, booze, and such.

So I'm looking for a small standalone cooling unit, ideally with radiator fins and forced air on both hot and cold side. But small - like a fridge unit, not an air conditioner that is large and loud and wants me to cut holes in my exterior wall.

I saw in another thread, someone had chopped the cooling unit out of a small kegerator, and while this might work, the ones I've seen have a junky solid plate to cool the interior and seem to use the external metal casing to dissipate heat. If I went that route, maybe I could braze some fins onto the large plates, add a muffin fan ... But it would sure be easier if I could just get the right unit from the start.

I also thought of buying a small portable AC. These have forced air and are an ok size, but even with a thermostat change they seem to be optimized for much higher temperatures ...

I saw some small cooling units intended for RV or yacht use that would have been perfect except they were designed to run on 12V and were woefully underpowered. Like this. Looks almost exactly what I want, but underpowered for my volume.


Anyone have suggestions?

Cheers!

[Quin]

Seems like cutting up an upright freezer would be the easiest with a Love controller or something for controls. I think if you got one of a similar size (cubic feet) as the bar you are planning it would work. Also it would need to be insulated really well.