Vinotemp 600e

Recently purchased this unit and have had it plugged in for a week now. It is almost completely full and the question isn’t how often does it run but when doesn’t it run. Help…

Been running a week? What’s the thermometer say? Should have been adjusted at the factory, but you may need to get out the screwdriver and get medieval on it.

I have one of these in the gagrage. Here in SoCal when the outside temp gets up there it can sound like it’s going constantly, but I’m sure it rests sometime. 9 yrs now.

It reads anywhere between 56 and 59 when it is running which seems to be all the time. It is indoors and it has been quite cool here lately. This is the new winemate system.

Hmmm, the temp seems right. I know mine is not running very often during our occasional cold snap here. Guess I’d be tempted to call the factory to get some piece of mind or ask if you need to adjust it. IIRC, there is an adjustment screw in the front – oh wait, soundslike you have a different cooler.

BTW, what kind of racking did you get - all wood, or wood metal matrix?

Yeah I may just call them as it doesn’t seem right to me. I got the 3 3/4" wood/metal racking.

600e must hold a couple of hundred bottles.

Were they already at 55F when you put them in or were they more 60-75F? There is a HUGE amount of thermal mass to wine plus glass. You have a pretty big space. And as I posted elsewhere, and will find and put here, wine cooling units don’t work as air conditioners do. They cool without removing moisture which is a slower process.

My guess is your unit is cycling, but spending 98% of the time ON. They glass cools, the air temp seems to be right, but the glass warms from the warmer wine, the air in the unit warms and the temp sensor kicks the unit on.

Also add in the WARM room you have it in. You are assaulting your unit from the outside, warming it up, ever so slowly. Warm bottles inside, warm temps out, and a cooling unit NOT built for speed but for maintaining the right relative humidity and temp in concert.

This is normal. It will happen for about 3 weeks. Just make sure your temp settings are right so when it does settle at 55F you will be ok.

This HELPS us once the full unit is at temp as opening the door will raise the air temp in the unit, but the cold bottles quickly overwhelm and your unit may only be on for 4 minutes with each door opening.

We can talk about hysteresis loops at some point but you aren’t there yet.

TEST this to give yourself peace of mind. Turn the temp setting up. Say 62-65F. Does the unit kick off? Does it stay off for a little bit? (you said it was consistently reading in the 50s so the bottles may be close to 60F). This tells you the unit IS working but that simply the wines are still warmer than your temp setting (which measures AIR which warms and cools more quickly than liquid/glass).

FINALLY when the unit is running, and the door closed, run your hand around the outside. Do you feel any cool air leaking out?

Jeff, thanks for the peace of mind. I bought the unit so I didn’t have to have three separate ones when I moved, bottles were stored in my garage for a few days during the transfer so they were probably a bit warm. I’ll give it a couple more weeks, but your explanation makes alot of sense… thanks all.

Sometimes being a science geek pays off. Rarely but sometimes.

Feel free to post, email or even call if you continue to have concerns.

I have one of those in my garage in SoCal. Bought it in '98, replaced the cooling unit in 2004 with a 2500 btu unit. The original unit used to run so often that it would ice up, but the newer unit, even in the heat of summer, is much better at keeping the temp cool and even shutting off once in a while.

Jeff makes sense above. Also, put a stand alone thermometer in the unit, about midway. Leep an eye on it . Sometimes there is a slight variance. I had a Vinoteque that swore it was struggling to keep cool at 55, but low and behold, it was actually trying at about 50, so I kept it more in the 58 range. It ran more in the summer, but beautifully in the wineter. Glass doors are nice, but not very efficient.

I have a second therm in my unit now and its pretty exact with my Eurocaves system give or take a degree.

Good luck and keep us posted.

There are inexpensive wireless thermometers which have a sensing unit that transmits to base that shows temp. I got one of these a long time ago so could see at a glance what t he air temp in my Vinotemp was. It’s something like this one http://www2.oregonscientific.com/shop/product.asp?cid=2&scid=5&pid=857" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; though that’s more weather oriented than mine.

Anyway, this is a good way to what the temp in your unit is without constantly opening the thing…

This is my next purchase.