Vino Temp Humidity Resolved

All,

I recently had some humidity problems in my Vino Temp 28ct and I just wanted to share my trials and tribulations as well as the solution that I came accross. I recently posted that I was having problems maintaining humidity consistence through out my humidor. My humi is set up with custom cedar trays up top and two shelves on the lower level. The humidor is rather packed with loose cigars and stogies still in boxes. For humidity I placed about a pound of 65% beads in a bowl on the bottom of the humidor. My NYC apartment is not air conditioned consistently as I do not leave it on when I am at work so the Vino is usually always on cooling the cigars. It is currently set at the lowest temperature possible. The problem I was having was that the cigars on the upper levels were not receiving the proper humidity and temperature was rather erratic, remaining at 70 degrees with about 50% to 47%rH. I tried everything including buying a cigar oasis and nothing seemed to work. Water began to pool at the bottom of the humidor which only led to more problems. I polled the board members and it looked like proper airflow was the best solution so here is what i did...

I went on ebay and got a flat computer cooling pad which has 3 fans on it, unfortunately these fans are usually always powered by USB so I also bought a USB to A/C power converter, the total cost of these two items was about 19 dollars. The computer pad is not really powerful, only about 3,000rpms.

There has been a lot of discussion about whether to plug or unplug the drain in the humi but here is what i did. I flipped the humi over and unscrewed the water collecting tray right below the drain, I also unscrewed the drainage tube and removed it completely from the humi. I then took a screw driver and created a larger hole where the drainage tube used to be so I could wire the USB power cable through the drain, this worked perfectly. I also took a small foam earplug that you can get at any drug store and plugged what remained of the hole in the humi. I placed the cooling pad flat up against the back wall in the humi and proped it up slightly from the ground using small left over cedar dividers. I placed the bowl filled with beads back on the floor of the humi and placed the cigar oasis on the shelf and turned it on. I took some pics of what the humi now ultimately looks like. The best part... Temperature and humidity are pretty much constant through out the entire vino temp (65 degrees, 63% rH) and no more puddles are accumulating on the floor.





If you have any questions and feel that you are running into the same problem I did please let me know. It looks like the solution here was simple, more airflow, but I think these computer cooling pads provide a better alternative to Oust fans and can be put in the humidor in a more space saving manner.

I hope this helps!

-Seth

[stearns]

very cool, i really need to do this, my oust fans arent really cutting it, plus im running out of space to put em. thanks for the tip

stearns

[cort]

I am by no means an expert but I believe the problem you were having is that you had the vino set at the coolest possible setting. This makes the cooling unit run all the time which sucks the humidity out of the air and turns it in to condensate which you were finding on the drip tray. Most people including me set their vinos to the highest setting (66) so that it only runs the cooling unit for a short time when it gets too hot. I live in So Cal where it gets real hot and during those hot days the vino works a little harder and gets up to about 73-74* and the humidity drops to the low 60's. At night when it cools down the vino stops runnin and the humidity stabilizes again back to 65%rh.

Try setting it up to 66 and see what happens. I use 2lbs. of Shilala beads in mine and it works great.

Hope this helps.

I did a detailed test about a month ago testing the dips and rises in the vino. I did it with the intention to show why I offer glass tops in my trays. Some day I will get around to posting the results and let everyone make up their own minds. One thing I did do is monitor the changes when the unit was running VS when it wasn't running. In my test the RH drops tremendously when the unit cycles. The amount and quality of the beads or whatever you are using to regulate moisture is key to maintaining a consistent RH throughout the vino. If poor air flow or blocked airflow in packed units is present its inevitable that you will have RH issues.

Bottom line is you fixed it

Congrats and enjoy your smokes.

Chas

Thanks for all the info. I had the same problem with the water pooling in the bottom. It ended up soaking thru two boxes I had and soaked into a bunch of the cigars.

I am going to be converting an old fridge eventually, but will keep my wineador for singles. I am going to look into one of those laptop pads this weekend. What are the rough dimensions of the pad? Mine is only a 16 bottle, so I wonder if it will fit.

[troutbreath]

Nice solution. It seems that nothing is perfect in this hobby, but it's great to have such creative and dedicated minds coming up with new ideas.

[tchariya]

Originally Posted by ChasDen

I did a detailed test about a month ago testing the dips and rises in the vino. I did it with the intention to show why I offer glass tops in my trays. Some day I will get around to posting the results and let everyone make up their own minds. One thing I did do is monitor the changes when the unit was running VS when it wasn't running. In my test the RH drops tremendously when the unit cycles. The amount and quality of the beads or whatever you are using to regulate moisture is key to maintaining a consistent RH throughout the vino. If poor air flow or blocked airflow in packed units is present its inevitable that you will have RH issues.

Bottom line is you fixed it

Congrats and enjoy your smokes.

Chas

WHAT?? and all this time i thought you were offering the glass tops to mimic the pure genius of the COHIBO cigar humidors!!!!!

[alley00p]

Originally Posted by tchariya

WHAT?? and all this time i thought you were offering the glass tops to mimic the pure genius of the COHIBO cigar humidors!!!!!

LOL

Originally Posted by Cort

I am by no means an expert but I believe the problem you were having is that you had the vino set at the coolest possible setting. This makes the cooling unit run all the time which sucks the humidity out of the air and turns it in to condensate which you were finding on the drip tray. Most people including me set their vinos to the highest setting (66) so that it only runs the cooling unit for a short time when it gets too hot. I live in So Cal where it gets real hot and during those hot days the vino works a little harder and gets up to about 73-74* and the humidity drops to the low 60's. At night when it cools down the vino stops runnin and the humidity stabilizes again back to 65%rh.

Try setting it up to 66 and see what happens. I use 2lbs. of Shilala beads in mine and it works great.

Hope this helps.

That sounds about right to me... Maybe i'll try turning it up to the max and see what happens. There is still some water accumulation in the Vino but by no means is it as bad as it used to be.