A little RH Wineador help

[LoneSmoker]

Hey brothers this is my first post aside from my intro, so be gentle. I have search the board and haven't found an answer to my exact problem/setup, so if there is one please direct me there. What I have is an Edgestar 28. I got it last week and set it up over the weekend. I have 2lbs of dry 65% beads in four bags, two on top and two on bottom. A Cigar Oasis (Humi-Care), figured this could charge the beads, and about 6 empty boxes. I have two of the Oasis fans mounted on the back wall, on either side of the drain, pointing upwards. I plugged the drain and rigged up a crazy condensation catcher/drain tube. Currently I have it draining that water into a small bowl with KL until I get everything stabilized. My issue is the RH on the bottom reads something around 59% and the top is about 63%. I have a double try coming from a BOTL here on the forum as well.

My current storage method is a ~4.5cft cooler. What weird is I lined that with SC scraps and put 2lbs of dry litter in and it was a steady 65% since day two. I am super eager to move my sticks over to the Edgestar since my temps in my house are waaay too warm to store cigars and not constantly worry. I really don't want to charge the beads the usual way because when I first got my 2oz beads for my 100ct humi, I wet them about 20% and this turned out to be too much due to the humidity here in Alabama.

 

[Jwrussell]

LS, welcome aboard. The issue you are probably dealing with is the same one I have in my coolerdor down here in Florida. Mine's a condenser-type, so it's more pronounced, but the issue is that the warmer air is at the top of the cooler and the colder air is at the bottom. Basically, the cooler isn't able to create a single uniform environment that is one temperature and hold it. This means that the bottom of the cooler holds less moisture in the air at the same RH than the top does (again at the same RH). Basically the issue is that you have your beads at the top pumping out moisture to get to the desired RH (higher temp needs more moisture to get to the desired RH) while you have the bottom beads sucking up moisture to get to the desired RH (lower temp needs less moisture to get to the desired RH). Add to that the Oasis which just pumps out moisture and you've got three different humidification devices doing three different things.

As long as you have temp differences (note what the temp differences are from top to bottom in this thread if you don't mind) you will have some variation. How much and for how long will depend on how often the unit comes on to cool. What temp do you have the unit set at?

I would recommend pulling out the Oasis. Leave the fans if you can. Or, just empty the Oasis completely so you can leave the fans in if that works. I'm not that familiar with the unit, but perhaps you could fill it with beads instead of just distilled water? Being in AL, you probably don't really need to be worrying about ADDING humidity quite so much as you do removing it.

At any rate, I would only have beads regulating the RH in the cooler for now and see how things settle out.

 

[LoneSmoker]

Thanks Jason, Temp on the bottom is 63 and on the top its 65. I have the cooler on the "warmest". It's just a dial in the back from coolest to warmest. I can take the bottom of the Oasis off and just leave the top controller part in to power the fans. I'll take the bottom half out to night and see what it does. Thanks. Oh I guess I should not charge the beads, huh? They probably already have enough water in them by this point wouldn't you think?

 

[Northernmoris]

The edgestar is thermoelectric.. I seasoned mine with with only heartfelt beads and left them. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone has a slight variation in RH%/temp, I know I do.. I put a bag of beads in each drawer and a small bowl under my two shelves, it keeps it pretty stable.

 

[Jwrussell]

Thanks Jason, Temp on the bottom is 63 and on the top its 65. I have the cooler on the "warmest". It's just a dial in the back from coolest to warmest. I can take the bottom of the Oasis off and just leave the top controller part in to power the fans. I'll take the bottom half out to night and see what it does. Thanks. Oh I guess I should not charge the beads, huh? They probably already have enough water in them by this point wouldn't you think?

Most likely you don't need to charge them. What beads are you using, Heartfelt or HCM/Shilala? If Heartfelt, check them to see what percentage of the beads are white versus clear. You want about 70-75% clear. Give them a chance to stabilize everything and see how it works out. 63-65 is not much of a variation. It can take a few days for things to really settle in and stabilize. I see that you just set this up this weekend, so have some patience and let everything work itself out. :thumbsup:

There are a bunch more things to fiddle with, but for now I would just give it some time.

Oh, and one last thing. Can't believe I didn't already ask this...I always do. Did you calibrate your Hygrometers? With a Boveda pack, not the salt test? If not, that's where you need to start. If so, great.:cbig:

 

[LoneSmoker]

HF beads. I have a Xikar Hygrometer that was calibrated with the Boveda and a Caliber III. You know the more I think about the more I think I might have over thought this drain. You think this could be part of the problem?
I'll have to post it another post to get to 5 posts.

 

[LoneSmoker]

Here we go.. Bad design?

 

[Jwrussell]

Hmmm...I'll have to let some other brothers chime in on this. Have you looked at the thread titled "Winecooler 101"? If not, be sure to check it out, it is chock full of awesome information, and it looks like you have a similar cooler. I have an older condenser model and my drain is at the bottom of the cooler. I just plugged it up and threw some beads in the trough that funnels to it.

Just a quick note, and not to harp, but you calibrated the Caliber as well, right?

 

[LoneSmoker]

From everything I've read, you are not suppose to calibrate the Caliber. Thats what the instructions say as well. Says it's calibrated at the factory. It always reads the same as the Xikar. Maybe I should just for good measure.

 

[Jwrussell]

From everything I've read, you are not suppose to calibrate the Caliber. Thats what the instructions say as well. Says it's calibrated at the factory. It always reads the same as the Xikar. Maybe I should just for good measure.

If it always reads the same as your Xikar then you are probably good, but I'm betting that what you read is that you shouldn't Salt Test it to calibrate, right? The Boveda pack won't hurt the Caliber in any way. All you are doing is putting it into a controlled environment where you are certain of what the RH is so that you can confirm what the Caliber says.

 

[Northernmoris]

If it always reads the same as your Xikar then you are probably good, but I'm betting that what you read is that you shouldn't Salt Test it to calibrate, right? The Boveda pack won't hurt the Caliber in any way. All you are doing is putting it into a controlled environment where you are certain of what the RH is so that you can confirm what the Caliber says.

I have 6 Caliber III's, all are dead on for the last 3 yrs. I think at this time just relax a little and let it settle down. You can also put some empty boxes in to fill up some space while it settles.. I know just like a cooleridor the more open space the more possibility of fluctuation.

 

[OB-Left]

Here we go.. Bad design?

Check out the tube design in my thread. http://www.botl.org/community/forums/showthread.php?t=49147&highlight=edgestar+build

 

[LoneSmoker]

I like your drain OB, I might be rethinking mine now.
Tell me if this is on par with the rest of you guys. My RH is reading pretty low. This morning I unplug the unit because I figure that will at least let some evaporation happen. Well about 3 minutes after I unplugged it, my RH shoots up to 65% and holds! I'm thinking now I should disconnect the internal fan and plug the thing back in.... Oh and the temp didn't change inside the unit. It was still ~65*

 

[keinreis]

I do not think your drain is to blame. Now I will ask. are you getting this issue with the cooler empty? My thinking is that if you are trying to get it to stabilize before adding shelfs, and or boxes you are fighting a loosing battle. I have the same cooler as you, and when I first got it, I had some issues like you. Things I did was check the door seal. Dark room with a flashlight does a good job. There was some sealing issues that were corrected by adjusting the door. Also as I put more in the RH stabilized quite a bit. i do not have extra fans, Juts 2lbs of beads on the bottom. There is a slight variation between the top and bottom, but not much.

 

[LoneSmoker]

Hmm I haven't checked the seal. It feels good but I haven't actually checked it. Also I have 6 or 7 empty boxes up top and two on a rack directly in front of the internal fan. So the entire lower half is empty.

 

[Jwrussell]

I like your drain OB, I might be rethinking mine now.
Tell me if this is on par with the rest of you guys. My RH is reading pretty low. This morning I unplug the unit because I figure that will at least let some evaporation happen. Well about 3 minutes after I unplugged it, my RH shoots up to 65% and holds! I'm thinking now I should disconnect the internal fan and plug the thing back in.... Oh and the temp didn't change inside the unit. It was still ~65*

Definitely check out the Wineador 101 thread...whatever it's called, it's stickied on the top of this sub-forum. If by "internal fan" you mean the one that is part of the cooler, definitely do not do that. That has been brought up numerous times and every response I've seen says you'll mess up the cooler.

As others have mentioned, having more stuff in the cooler will certainly help to settle things down. Especially if you are talking Cedar as it will act to regulate the RH as well as the beads to some degree. You also might want to look into an ETC to bump the temp up just a tad so that the cooler isn't running so much. It seems to me that the problem you are having has more to do with the cooler running constantly than anything else. An ETC will stop that fan from running all the time as well.

 

[keinreis]

Yes dark room, door shut. run a flashlight around entire seal, and look inside to see if you get any light.

 

[LoneSmoker]

Ulgh, well I just ordered a Ranco ETC. I really didn't want to spend that money. Thanks for all the help brothers. I'll keep this updated. Thanks for the help guys. I just did a search on here for "Ranco" and found lots of info. I guess I need to spend more time searching also. I update this thread with progress.

 

[Jwrussell]

Lee, did you order the pre-wired one I hope? That would have been the one linked to in the thread I mentioned. That's the one you want, easiest to deal with, just plug and play.

 

[LoneSmoker]

Lee, did you order the pre-wired one I hope? That would have been the one linked to in the thread I mentioned. That's the one you want, easiest to deal with, just plug and play.

I did. Was going to be cheap and order the unwired one, but I watched a Utube vid on wiring it.... Not for me.lol. I did ask them if they would make it with just 4ft cords. They were happy to and said they would even get it out the door today.