Building an Affordable Electronic Humidor.

[jquest63]

Well done and excellent documentation of project!

A conventional alternative: take a large cabinet humidor and cut out a hole in the back for installing a thermoelectric thru mount air conditioning device. It has a cold side w/fans on the inside of your humidor and a hot side which is on the outside of the humidor. Then connect that to a power supply and put a drip pan in your humidor and your ready to cool. Key is to purchase right size of cooling device. Just determine how much space you need to cool and how many degrees on average you need to control. Melcor MAA150T-12/24 is one example of a thermoelectric cooler. You could get fancy and add a controller to this as well. Of course, this doesn't cover humidification. Suggest oasis or some such active device with fans.

[captain]

for some reason if i click the link it says error. if a try to download the pdf it wont allow it. any ideas? id really liek to read the paper

[PigFish]

for some reason if i click the link it says error. if a try to download the pdf it wont allow it. any ideas? id really liek to read the paper

PM me your email and I will find and send the pdf. -Ray

[captain]

thanks. pm sent

[neophytesmoker]

Used chemistry lab equipment might be a good source for inexpensive refrigeration.

One possibility is to use a little plate chiller like the one linked to below for $40 on eBay, a heat sink like the MF35, which also sells for around $40, and a couple of 5" to 7" fans to make a heat exchanger.

Another idea is to use a heat pump from a refrigerated recalculating water bath, and use it to circulate chilled water through a automotive heater core.

Heat Sink

http://www.conradheatsinks.com/products/fl...0_350.html#MF35

Plate chiller

http://cgi.ebay.com/ESA-Gel-slab-dryer-or-...id=p3286.c0.m14

Refrigerated Recalculating water Baths

http://cgi.ebay.com/A57207-Brinkmann-Instr...id=p3286.c0.m14

http://cgi.ebay.com/Erweka-EM-Heating-Cool...id=p3286.c0.m14

http://cgi.ebay.com/Remcor-Cornelius-Liqui...id=p3286.c0.m14

Keith

[audio1der]

Very nice. I prefer the accumonitor.

Nice system, but what do the 5-10, 10-20 and 2-40 refer to: cubic feet?

[Bartolomeo]

Fantastic read and after talking to Ray yesterday, he is a true wizard of his humidor.

Lots to learn in this article

Bart

[CigarmanTim]

One of the finest do it yourself posts ever.... EVER. I hope to be "borrowing" Pigs ideas for my system I plan on building in my man cave

[wescat]

Great discussion.

[wescat]

I agree. in the summer months, the ambient RH rises in my area, and it the RH gets too high for my comfort. the only way I've found to safely bring it down is to use a product called DampRid. it's odorless, and works well to bring down the RH. Now, I have a HUGE cabinet designed from Staebell, so I have to use about 6 buckets of this stuff, spread out thru the cabinet, to bring down the RH. There's no way to dial in a set point for it to reduce RH to, so I just have to monitor it, and take the DampRid out when it's down to the level I want.

kyee, I am curious, what is the interior volume of your Staebell cabinet?

[wescat]

Piggy, my specifying climate controlled humidors is rather pedestrian. It's simply to point out that these climate control systems, as they apply

to sealed humidors / cabinets are not completely active. They can maintain temp and add humidity, but are not capable of removing excess

moisture. I agree that this would probably require some kind of ventilation system. At that point I'd probably be more inclined to try and build

a small walk in, as some of the members here have done.

As you have pointed out, it all depends on what you are looking for or expect for your own personal application. Location and appearance

are surely important factors.

Regarding the dehumidification of a large cigar storage device:

Here is an effective manual technique that you can use any time your RH stubbornly stays higher than you desire. Obtain 2 containers with screw on lids that will fit in your coolerdor/wineador (*dor). Fill them with water and freeze them solid in your refrigerator freezer (leave a bit of room at the top for expansion, so the bottle keeps its shape): I use (2) one quart gatorade bottles. Place them one at a time in your *dor, sitting in a bowl, with a folded towel under the bowl. The water vapor will condense on the exterior walls of the bottle, run down the bottle and pool in the bowl. Swap the bottles out every 12 hours (between *dor and freezer) and toss the condensate after measuring the volume. If you have a fan in your *dor, run it during this process. You will soon learn to correlate removed condensate volume to %RH reduction. I use this technique in my unit with great success whenever the RH stays above 65%. It works very well, no need to purchase any equipment (such as a mini dehumidifier), and I always love a simple, practical solution that uses the laws of physics to solve a problem. This process can remove 1 cup of condensate in 4-5 days from my *dor.

[samb]

WOW!!! That is THE most in depth guide Ive ever seen!!

[acidmase]

Just wondering where you purcheased the spanish cedar?

[stargazer14]

Acidmase - Not sure where you are in Jersey, but Delaware County Supply,

just across the bridge in PA (near Chester) has spanish cedar,

you can also find board lengths on eBay.

[PigFish]

I too have to look for it sometimes. I buy mine at a local lumber (hardwood) supplier. I typically buy 5/4 hardwood (or Spanish cedar in this case) re-saw it with a bandsaw and then plane it to a desired thickness. Any supplier of cabinet materials can get if for you it is a matter of asking. - Piggy

[daboose]

Regarding the dehumidification of a large cigar storage device:

Here is an effective manual technique that you can use any time your RH stubbornly stays higher than you desire. Obtain 2 containers with screw on lids that will fit in your coolerdor/wineador (*dor). Fill them with water and freeze them solid in your refrigerator freezer (leave a bit of room at the top for expansion, so the bottle keeps its shape): I use (2) one quart gatorade bottles. Place them one at a time in your *dor, sitting in a bowl, with a folded towel under the bowl. The water vapor will condense on the exterior walls of the bottle, run down the bottle and pool in the bowl. Swap the bottles out every 12 hours (between *dor and freezer) and toss the condensate after measuring the volume. If you have a fan in your *dor, run it during this process. You will soon learn to correlate removed condensate volume to %RH reduction. I use this technique in my unit with great success whenever the RH stays above 65%. It works very well, no need to purchase any equipment (such as a mini dehumidifier), and I always love a simple, practical solution that uses the laws of physics to solve a problem. This process can remove 1 cup of condensate in 4-5 days from my *dor.

I just gave this a try on a smaller scale; an EdgeStar28. I used a 25 fl oz bottle of water (frozen) and left it in for 3 hours and a nagging 68% went to 65%.

Great info!

[PigFish]

^bump for a friend! -

[Domniomaestro]

The attached PDF is one of the mst remarkable pieces of work on Electronic Humidors that I have ever had the privellege to read.

To Pigfish (Ray)....my sincere thanks for putting this together. On behalf of all FOH members....."Bloody well done mate!"

I don't have the program here to comvert the PDF to an uploadable image format but if some one does....shoot it through to me.

Humidor_Project3_30_09HQP.pdf

Hello,

The pdf file you have here about building a wine cooler humidor....may I have permission to post that file on another cigar forum, with all the credits to pigfish and this forum in the message? (I tried sending pigfish a PM but his mailbox is full. )

Thank you for your time.

Dave

[PigFish]

Hello,

The pdf file you have here about building a wine cooler humidor....may I have permission to post that file on another cigar forum, with all the credits to pigfish and this forum in the message? (I tried sending pigfish a PM but his mailbox is full. )

Thank you for your time.

Dave

With my blessing Mate! Please post courtesy of FriendsofHabanos.com or if you can, linking the forum for the PDF would be my preference. I did write this for this forum and would prefer the link coming here for recognition. Thank you for asking. -Ray

[Domniomaestro]

With my blessing Mate! Please post courtesy of FriendsofHabanos.com or if you can, linking the forum for the PDF would be my preference. I did write this for this forum and would prefer the link coming here for recognition. Thank you for asking. -Ray

Thank you. I will link it from here. I just didnt know if the admin's of this forum would appreciate that bandwidth getting used.

[Charltonc]

Living in Florida in the summer is a difficult task for temperature. I have had no problems with humidity. My humidity stays at 64-65 all the time, but the temperature ranges from 72-75. I would like to have the temp from 65 to 70 because of beetles. Thank you for your great article.

[PigFish]

^

[PigFish]

Bump.

[davidl]

Piggy - thanks for documenting this project so well. As an IT professional, the quality of documentation, and the benefit all others get from it are very apparent - so thanks. I have learned a lot from it, and I am sure that many others will. On my PC, The PDF is saved in the same folder as the MRN pages on Aging that were published on the internet :-)

[CanuckSARTech]

Pres, would it be valuable maybe to start a section / sticky thread somewhere on the Forum, just specifically for posting valuable PDFs for members on here? I know Piggy's one is invaluable, and I have a couple that could maybe help. I'm sure others might have likewise resources.