I am now the proud owner of a small, beat up hotpoint chest freezer from the 90's which I am going to use as a fermentation chamber. There's enough room in it for one fermenting bucket and not much else.
As I don't have any electronic or soldering experience I'm going with an Inkbird ITC-308 as a temperature controller (as has bighoppapump (http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/forum/equipment-chemicals/inkbird-308s-probe-size/?topicseen) apparently so some of my questions have already been answered!)
The only way I can see of getting cables into the freezer will be to cut a little section through the door seal and then fill in the gaps around the cables as best I can. Does anyone forsee a problem with this?
What would be recommended for heating? A brew belt?
I've an old battered fridge that kept shorting out, so I just used it with a demijohn heater (about 20w) and an STC. Sometimes I put my stirplate in there too. That's three wires, including the temp probe. Granted two are slim 12v wires, one is a slimish cable like you'd get from a lamp from Argos. I open the door, put the stuff in the chamber, close the door, and if it doesn't quite seal I stick a bit of parcel tape over it. Zero problems, zero cutting. Try that first, before you go cutting anything.
IIWY, I'd try closing the unit up with the Inkbird cables running OVER the seals to see if they bed in a bit. If not, a small nick in the seal will resolve the matter. Cold falls, heat rises, your access is from above. If you are running the freezer, the cold will be fine. I wrap the FV in bubble wrap and use a heater pad below the FV with the probe stuck tight to the FV sidewall. If I was expecting high temps (running compressor), I'd dispense with the bubble wrap.
I see some people use a water bath and an aquarium heater to warm their fermenter, any thoughts on this vs a brew belt / pad? I would need quite a specific sized bath to fit inside my space!
Tube heater is a good option.
Or soil heating cable. I use an old brew belt, but it can only lift the brew above ambient by so much, so winter saisons won't be the crazy fruit loops that I want