I am deeply apologetic that I am only writing this log entry now. The last year been a whirlwind for me. I moved to the other side of South Africa and started working as an engineer in Condition and Performance Monitoring for our local power utility. The time between being called to hear the offer, being interviewed and then starting work was literally less than 10 days.

Suffice to say, I moved 1,600 km away from the fridge and actually haven't done any Hacking since. I was, though, gifted a Dremel 4000 for Christmas so I know I must start again. Back to the fridge controller though, I did have enough time to build and blow up two iterative controller boards :-/...

The first one blew up due to the switching current, I tried to use a 220V MOSFET but it's current limitation was 10A, the fridge draws about 22A when engaging the compressor. Realising my mistake, I decided to use the original controller's relay. I made the mistake of using veroboard. I, sadly have a severe distrust and ignorance of electricity above 5VDC. The new board was fried by an arc of current over its board, ruining every component. I had had the presence of mind to use optocoupler isolation but that obviously wasn't enough.

I did try a redesign, using a larger veroboard with a broad separation (grinding away 20 or so rather than 1 or 2 strips of copper) between the DC and AC areas and Live and Neutral lines but I have not found a reasonably priced 5VDC-220VAC (30A) relay to complete the board.

So in summary, I blew $30 of components in an attempt to play with voltages I normally avoid like the plague and then had to go off to the coal field for work. My parents have said they're going to scrap the fridge too, so I think I must close this project. But I know that if you have the right components and know how for 220VAC PCB production, this design should have worked.