Active vs. Passive Humidification

[daniyal]

I've seen pictures of a lot of people out in the jungle using a combination of the methods above in their cabinets, etc. I was wondering if there are advantages to one or the other. Is active humidification better than passive or is it just a cost effective way of humidifying a larger area?

I know a lot of the gorillas use the beads/watersorb with some thing like the cigar oasis to absorb excess moisture even though a lot of active humidification units come with monitors to set and maintain a desired level of humidity. Any thoughts?

I apologise if this topic has already been exhausted by the jungle...

[xxwaldoxx]

I think its more of an insurance policy than anything else. If your active unit malfunctions you have a passive way of regulating the humidity without it getting out of control (either over or under your preferred RH)

I currently do not use an active system but plan on setting one up when I build my walk in. I'll be adding RH beads because they are an inexpensive way to insure that my investment doesn't take a turn for the worse due to Hi/Low RH.

[rgordin]

If you use beads, you have to be careful so that the effective active system and the type and placement of the beads are compatable. By that I mean that the active system will read the humidity at a particular location (in my experience, humidity varies by location in the humidor). If the beads cause the humidity to be higher or lower at that location than your setting on your active system (taking into account the +/- variance in the accuracy of your active humistat), the two systems will work against each other. For example, if you put in 65% beads and your active system is set to turn on at 68%, it will be running more frequently than it should.