Well, I was too hasty, and should know at my age to never gloat…
The thermostat I installed quit working after just a few days. I initially thought it had outright failed; open contact… but, more on that idea to follow.
The fridge itself was fine, but I was back to a jumper and manual intervention. This time, I took a little more time to research the right fit. Ultimately, ordered this one, a Danfoss 077B7001:
All good now, but I was curious about the first one. Dug it out of the trash and sitting at room temperature, I noticed that it again had -0- ohms, closed contacts, as we’d expect. I popped it in the freezer, and to my surprise the contacts opened after just a few minutes. Looking at the two (7001 new vs. 6175 my first replacement) here’s how they compare:
On the original thermostat, aside from needing 1,200 mm long (min.) capillary, which ruled out a few choices, the uncoated tube mounts directly against the evaporator plate. The first replacement (6175) has a fixed cut-in of 4.5C degs (40.1 F)… that’s kind of warm, huh? I think once the temperatures stabilized, and condensation turned to frost on the evaporator plate, we were probably always below the cut-in. I might of moved the probe off the surface, but oh well, it is done and working good now.
I temporarily moved the outdoor sensor of our indoor/outdoor thermostat into the fridge for a few days to fine tune the setting, and joked that I had no idea what the outside temperatures were, but what I did know… was that the fridge was ideal for cooling beer.