[lunkhead]

I too want to thank the people on this forum for without their work in trying to get these danbys to work right i was ready to put a stick of dynamite in mine. I bought it new early last summer and was having the usual problems, warm, foamy beer. But when I set the thing up out of the box, I thought the beer line was way too long (6ft) so I shortened it to 2.5 ft. So I really had problems. Well after drinking a dozen or so warm foamy kegs it was time to hit the internet and I found this site while trying to find a service manual for my danby. I figured I could modify the temp controller if I could get a schematic for it. Well psychodad sent me off on a different track. Let's take a look at the temp sensor. I removed it and took resistance readings at various temps and found it had a negative temp coefficient ( temp down, res goes up). Putting a resistor in series with the sensor would only raise the temp in the unit but putting a resistor in parallel with the sensor would should make the unit cycle cooler. It did. After trying several values over a 2 weeks I ended up with a 33k ohm value. The unit will now just lightly ice over about half the surface of a 2 gal bucket of water at the lowest setting, 36deg. Please note that the readings on the display are not accurate now but after 2weeks of testing the actual temps are 5-6 deg cooler than the display. Shortened beer line, quick trip the the Micro Matic web site and it's now back to 6ft at 3/16 inch. Getting cool air into the tower. I had added extra layers of insulation so the inside dia of the cooling tower was 2" now but how to blow cold air up there. Trying to keep my costs down, I had a some 3/4" thin wall copper pipe that would fit into the bottom opening. After figuring out the area of the 3 circles (the pipe, beer line & tower opening) There was plenty of space to vent the air back into the unit. I found that fans just won't blow air into a 3/4" pipe. So I found a 24volt 5" blower on line for $6.00. What a difference!!! The thing moved too much air. I eventually ended up running it at 7.8v (from a 6v dc wall transformer I had laying around) I only needed to place the pipe over the 1" X 2" opening of the blower and had good return flow from the bottom of the tower. The top opening of the pipe is about 1.5" from where it bends into the faucet. With a couple of elbows and straight section of pipe I mounted the blower near the bottom of the cooling plate. The blower puts out enough air from the opening that I have it set up to blow up the pipe and across the cooling plate. Fired it all up set the thermostat at 37deg and put in a 1/4 keg of mic lite. The results, pressure now set to 13 psi, beer temp 34 deg in the glass (room temp) About 1" of foam on the first pull of the day about half inch there after. Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou to the folks here at this forum. In doing this the way that I did I wanted to keep the cost as low as possible, using what I had lying around, I've think I've spent about $30-35. Plus this is all completly reversable as I have not added or modified any holes existing in the unit. Yes the temp display still shows the 8 deg temp swing as it cycles on/off but with a refer thermometer inside the swing is about 6 deg. But I do love the results compaired to what it was.