Winedor Progress

[Head83]

So i was able to convince my amazing new wife to put a wine cooler on our wedding registration to try and clean up the Tupperware and various humidors around the house.  It ended up being the first thing purchased for our new life together and it has been my pet project ever since.  I did a serious cleaning on it to remove all the smells then went the cheap route with some trays off amazon at first.   It worked well but wasn't a great use of space. Here are a few pictures of what It started as:

I knew this wasn't the best use of space as I was quickly running out of room and I knew I wanted to put in permanent shelves. I contacted John who was amazingly responsive.  We talked over what I was looking for and my price range and we eventually got to an ordering point.  He has a backlog due to his great work and takes on about 5 builds a month.  Lead time was about 3 months so I began the wait.  Not an easy thing to do with 24:24 sales and needing money to pay John and wondering how much room I would have.  In the mean time I added LED lights and took on an electrical project to build an automatic fan system to turn on and off at set intervals built inside an old cigar box I had laying around to circulate air.  Well today was the day I finally had a box on my front porch from John with my shelves. I couldn't wait to unpack them and his quality exceeded all my expectations.  They were amazingly built and fit to perfection.  Unfortunately I have to begin the seasoning process so I won't know exactly how much extra storage I have gained but from what I can tell, it's going to be substantial.  Here is the latest picture as seasoning begins 

I couldn't be happier!!!   If anyone is a new winedor owner, contact John.  He was great to deal with and does a great job.  I'll update this post as the seasoning comes along and I can reload to the finished project.  

[Head83]

Not sure why pictures aren't showing so going to try this route.  First two are the starting project with the last one being the seasoning beginning.   I apologize but I can't figure out how to rotate pictures from my phone 

[Head83]

Question for the all knowing @PigFish   Should I unplug my winedor and raise the temp or run it with colder temps to provide the best seasoning atmosphere?

[Homer]

If the temp is 10 celsius and RH is 60% the absolute humidity is 5,6g of water/m3.

If the temp is 20 celsius and RH 60% the absolute humidity is 10g of water/m3.

Temp 30 celsius and RH 60% = 18g/m3.

You get the idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PigFish]

... absolute humidity, as a singular entity is only half the process. Seasoning and conditioning cigars is a binary process. Seasoning and conditioning wood to accompany cigars another hygroscopic material, is also a binary process.

What you are looking for is ErH or Equilibrium Relative Humidity. This process is dependent on the conditioning that you desire  which will be dominant, neutral or subordinate to your humidor ambient (inside).

If conditioning is a requirement of your system then it needs to be balanced with your system at the temperature and rH of your system! Does this make sense?

I mean if you are reliant on your wood products to be a neutral 'influence' material in your cigar storage, and that is what it should be, then it needs the correct percent moisture content based on the temperature and relative humidity you expect it to me neutral too. The fastest way to get it there is a process you will not like be able to predict nor estimate. I therefore won't go into it. That leaves you with the easiest way which is to wait for it at the conditions you expect to run the humidor!

The real question you should be asking is how to keep the system balanced while operating, especially cooling? If that is a passive system, say based on beads, then the water supply must be dominant at times the cooler is not running. The cooler will be dominant while it is running and that can only be cured with engineering and an active humidifier. This being the case, I don't see the overall condition of the wood being a major factor. The major factor will be your water supply...

You will have two dominant forces in your humidor. The cooling cycle (which dehydrates) and the free water evaporative cycle which returns the water back to the system.

Always look for condensation. I have a little video that I will put up on Youtube about it when I have time to edit the video. Vigilance is a key to administrating an active cooled humidor!!!

Best of luck on your project. -the Pig

[Homer]

I have winedor at home but after 2 years I decided to keep it without the cooling. The RH humidity of the winedor was significantly differen at the bottom than at the top because the temp was also different.

Since the temp is now same as the room temp the RH remains at 65-66%.

 

[irratebass]

Not sure why pictures aren't showing so going to try this route.  First two are the starting project with the last one being the seasoning beginning.   I apologize but I can't figure out how to rotate pictures from my phone 

Damn I love the lights! A quick point about posting pics,I have found out if you take your pics separately, then upload them...they come out rightsideup this way,not sure why.

Nice wineador brother....again, love the lights!

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Head83]

I knew I could count on Piggy to point out all my failures when it comes to winedor construction lol.  In all honesty, thank you for your advice, the answer makes it sound like a silly question now.  I guess that 5th glass of whiskey last night wasn't needed after all but it tasted sooooo good!!!

 

For the first several months of owning my winedor, I experimented with several settings and observed how it reacted and more importantly, how my cigars smoked.  The winedor resides in our basement which always stays pretty cool regardless of the season.  The avg temp in the basement is currently hovering around the 70 degrees F mark and was a little less than that during the winter months.  At first, my RH was a little higher than I wanted due to oversaturated beads which is evident in the above pictures with levels around 69% on the top and bottom.  Ignore the two in the middle, their calibration is off and i was trying to determine what needed to be added to their displayed value to get an accurate reading.  Once I dried my beads out, I was able to peg an upper RH of 64% and a lower of 65%.

 

As piggy points out, this was only one part of the process, the next was determining temp.  I have rotated between two settings and found them to be the best so far.  Setting one is unplugged.  Since it already stays pretty cool down there, just unplugging the winedor keeps the temp around the 69-70 degree mark with RH staying around 64-65%.  Everything smokes great so it sounds like a great solution right?  But then the head games begin, why own a winedor if you dont use the cooling element!?  That brings me to setting two, temp set at the max temp possible which is 66.  Well the internal thermometer pretty much blows because at that setting, the cooler maintains about 67-68 degrees or only about 2-3 degrees less than not running it at all.  I have made sure to keep a close eye and I have never seen any evidence of condensation forming nor am I within any parameters that this could become an issue.

 

Now I could be wrong and I would love to hear piggys opinion on this.  Since the highest temp setting only reduces the internal temp 2-3 degrees and to do this, it only needs to run the fan for a few minutes every hour or so, I saw the TE element less as a cooler, and more as a fan to move air.  Yes there will be some interaction between the water vapor in the air but that would be minimal and when I watch my hygrometers, I may see a movement of 1% max but normally nothing.  My opinion is that temperature swings in 2-3 degree range and RH levels fluctuating between 1-2% is well within an acceptable tolerance level, these are just cigars after all.  Hell, I even put my hygrometers % accuracy within the 1-2 range.  Trying to perfect from this point becomes overly complicated, expensive and from what I tell, most people end up doing more damage than good, unless your Piggy and it becomes a life obsession which we all appreciate due to his knowledge!   

Back to the original question, right now I will play the waiting game till I reach that ErH level Piggy mentioned where the shelves hold at 64% at 69 degrees F.  Hopefully it goes quick so I can reload everything back in and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

 

 

      

[PigFish]

Leave it unplugged... Sorry!

Most people who build these at home use rather slow, low resolution test equipment. Running one of these requires realtime measurement or you just don't see the action and reaction aspects of the unit working.

Any cooling unit, TE or otherwise, that reduces air temp will strip water at a rate faster than cooling air. The makers of these boxes attempt to compensate for this via leaving a pool of condensate somewhere near the fan. This means, depending on the puddle, that you get some water return to the dry air, but it is an uncontrolled and unreliable process.

With hi-res equipment and enough air/water vapor flow, you would see it.

If you have this high degree of temperature (stable temperature) control, you have a winner already. This type of stability enviable and is going to beat a lot of controlled humidors. You only need the type of control that I specialize in when you have no such reliable stable temp to deal with.

Why ruin near perfection with a bunch of humidor theory that you cannot likely pull off with your level of instrumentation and design? This is a 'no-brainer' mate! Leave it unplugged!!!

-Ray

[Head83]

My 10 dollar hygrometer takes offense to being called slow!!!!!!!   That makes sense though which is why I always assumed a certain degree of error in my meters to avoid chasing that 1-2 degree or % RH change.  Its not worth the time and effort for us home gamers.  I like to focus on trends instead.    Looks like ill be leaving it unplugged for the foreseeable future.  The fan system I built using a timer module  will provide more than ample air movement.  Im debating on either running the power through the drain hole or drilling through the back.  Does anyone have any recommendations that have faced the same issue?