Humidor Temperature Regulation Build

[Cartierusm]

Howdy for those not following the thread about my new Antietem humidor you can start there about the genesis of this new humidor invention. Well not new but an affordable to the home user. A way to control the temp in your humidor. Not just heat but cold in a small compact device. Anyway, onto the guts. I figured out just tonight that I would finally tackle that age old nagging I had to build some sort of device to heat and cool my humi to keep it at a nice 70 F. So here are the first pics of everything I accomplished since I started the other thread which is about 4-5 hours. Pics below.

[MocoBird]

You may find that when the TEC is in the cooling mode that condensation will form on the metal plate inside the humi. You'll have to figure out a way to deal with a dripping cooling plate. Maybe place the fan facing directly at the plate and turned on when it's in the cooling mode to aid in the evaporation of the condensation or even something as simple as a piece of oasis foam placed right below to plate to catch any condensation dripping down. Just a thought....Look's good so far!! Keep the pic's coming.....

[pinokio]

Great work! Looks very nice, thanks for the pics.

[catfishm2]

Great pics. I to am starting to try and figure out a way to keep everything cool this coming summer without running the A/C all the time. Seemed like it was a constant battle last year. Keep us posted. I'm anxious to see how it works out.

[Cartierusm]

So far, as you can tell it's kept me up all night, no I still have bad cold that I think manifiested itself into sinus infection, I've run into one problem. With size radiant plate I made 4" x 4" aluminum it doesn't cool enough air at a time to create any temp difference within the humidor. SO today I'm going to put in a 12" x 12" plate to create a larger surface area to allow air to cool at a faster rate. Also with regards to the condensation Moco mentioned I'm going to mount the aluminum plate slightly off of level to hopefully create a expected direction of water run off, I could always build a fluid catch that returned the water to the Cigar Oasis reservoir, but I don't think I'm willing to spend the time to do that. I'm wondering if a aluminum heat sink will disperse the needed amount of surface area I need to cool the air. One pic from a website that sells TECs has just that heat sinks on both sides.

[Nely]

Wow man that is great! Hopefully the bigger surface area will do the trick. Keep us posted.

[Cartierusm]

I'm testing the new surface right now, I hope it works, I'm using a heat sink instead of a flat piece of aluminum. Which should do the trick, and looks cooler too.

[Nely]

Well how did it go?

[radar]

Originally Posted by Cartierusm

I'm testing the new surface right now, I hope it works, I'm using a heat sink instead of a flat piece of aluminum. Which should do the trick, and looks cooler too.

pics?

[pinoyman]

Originally Posted by Cartierusm

I'm testing the new surface right now, I hope it works, I'm using a heat sink instead of a flat piece of aluminum. Which should do the trick, and looks cooler too.

Good Luck Amigo, show some pics.

[radar]

I was just looking at heatsinks by enertron. This is a great idea, nice going.

[Cartierusm]

Radar the links to the pics are on the first post. SO everything is now build I ditched the original circuit board that the unit came with and build a custom one which works better. I've fine tuned the unit and everything is working perfect. The unit inside the humidor is pretty small now and there isn't much in the back. It raises the temp to 70 degress from 65 degrees in about 5 minutes and cooling takes longer, but up keep is even faster. When you install the unit you raise the temp or lower the temp to 70 and then when it has a 1 degree differential it either turns on the cooler or the heater. Now I'm sourcing out ways to make the power supply smaller as well as the Electronic Temp Control. More pics in a couple of hours, I'm doing my final test before sticking the stogies in.

[radar]

Originally Posted by Cartierusm

Radar the links to the pics are on the first post. SO everything is now build I ditched the original circuit board that the unit came with and build a custom one which works better. I've fine tuned the unit and everything is working perfect. The unit inside the humidor is pretty small now and there isn't much in the back. It raises the temp to 70 degress from 65 degrees in about 5 minutes and cooling takes longer, but up keep is even faster. When you install the unit you raise the temp or lower the temp to 70 and then when it has a 1 degree differential it either turns on the cooler or the heater. Now I'm sourcing out ways to make the power supply smaller as well as the Electronic Temp Control. More pics in a couple of hours, I'm doing my final test before sticking the stogies in.

Are you just using the fan on the Oasis for circulation or installing an aux. fan?
I saw the aux. in the pic but since you've redesigned, wondered if you eliminated it.

[Nely]

I would love to get my hands on one of these. Are you willing to sell/trade for your "blueprints"

[Cartierusm]

For everyone interested in one I will be selling the units as a whole, because there are so many integrated parts, i.e. power supplies, temp sensors, fan sensors, and so I on, I am bulding a custom circuit for these units to make them more compact and to keep the cost down. I will have blue prints soon enough once the circuit is built. Mine is up and running and keeping my cigars at exactly 70 degrees F and 65% humidity.

EVERYONE PICS ARE IN THE LINKS ABOVE IN THE FIRST POST!!

New pics in a few hours.

To answer Radar's question the fan in the oasis can not be used as a circulation fan, everytime the fan is on it humidifies. There has to be a separate fan to disperse the air off of the heat sink.