"Thanks for another of your (nearly always :=) helpful posts..."
See, there ya go again :laughing:
The compressor just died on an upright freezer that we didn't like much anyway, so replaced it with a newer, bigger one - I've already done this mod to one dead one, mostly for spendy/fancy stuff for my wood shop, gonna repeat that for the newest casualty -
I put a grommet in the drain hole (or make one if necessary) and put an "outhouse" porcelain light fixture in the bottom, drill a 3/8" hole in the top, find something to use in that hole for a breather/umbrella, put a 150 watt bulb in the fixture, plug that into a cheap HF "speed control",
turn the control down to about half; everything inside is nearly hermetically sealed, so no dust, etc, and it stays about 80 degrees (and dry) year round for about $4-5 a month.
You could use a smaller bulb at full power, but I find that the bulbs die fairly quickly that way - my "slowdown" method has used the same bulb for more than a year, still working; and no rust whatever on anything inside.
I'm running out of room in the first one, have a few spools of specialty wire in it but will use the second freezer dedicated to welding stuff. Just need to make a heavier duty shelf system for it, don't trust wimpy stuff for heavy things
Keeping an eye on CL for a reasonable rod oven, but meantime this works if I KEEP things dry from the start... Steve