Bart's New Vinotemp Project

[Bartolomeo]

Its all good fellas, keep on ribbing

I meant to originally say I was seasoning the trays and obviously not the Vino.........Oust work well in small-med humidors, I think they are useless in the Vino based on what I see so far.....smokes are in trays tonight resting.....ordered some custom shelves/trays from Chuck last night.....BTW, the Boveda calibration kit is the way to go, forget about the salt test, so much easier too.......I am not keeping all 8 hygrometers, just about 3 in total once I find the most accurate ones.....ordered singles from various sources to see what I like for future purchases and to test out sources........Ideally I would like to find 2-3 sources and leave it at that but its tough asking for sources when your a newbie, hope that makes sense

So far so good

Respectfully,

Bart

 

[aelabre131]

Looks pretty good so far dude. Keep us posted.

 

[Gawl]

Make sure you add some place for the condensation from the cooling fan to run off to since you sealed the drain hole. I fashioned a ramp from a binder divider and ran it into a bowl with my beads on the bottom. Keeps my beads hydrated and for the most part maintenance free. In the summer time my cooling fan runs a lot more and sometimes I need to empty the excess water but other than that not much else needs done.

You can also consider getting a good flowing PC cooling fan or 2 and wire it to a dc plug on a timer. Do a search here on the vinotemp threads and you can see the pictures out there where a few of us have done that. I set mine to run every 4 hours for 30 mins and they are much better than the oust fans.

 

[Bartolomeo]

Maybe the 3rd time really is the charm......This is the 3rd time me messing with this Vinotemp.......Something was just not right so I decided to add an Oasis XL and a CPU fan to pimp this Vinotemp out.........I know its overkill but if I get my ideal RH levels, its worth every penny to me

Enjoy!

Bart

Me rigging the wires together for the CPU fan

Taped them together b/c I am not an Electrician

Adaptor needed between fan and AC plug

Me trying out some LT cooling fans but they didnt blow enough air for my taste

3 different types of fans to see what works best, decided to go with the Red one

I put two rubber washers underneath the screws to dampen any noise and give the fan a little more clearance

The infamous "S" drain valve in the Vino

Tried to keep everything clean looking with some ties and new Electricians putty applied

I put velcro on the bottom of the fan so I can move it anytime but yet sturdy enough not to vibrate or make noise when running

Pic of the Oasis and fan

 

[Bartolomeo]

Bottom view of the set up

Starting the whole process over again

Threw some beads in to start the process but the rest of the beads are in the Tupperware with the smokes, resting until Vino is up and fully functional

Last picture for now, will post more soon after I throw the smokes in there

Have since taken Oasis out, not needing it currently

Still toying around with the numbers before I add smokes

Bart

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

LOL wow this sure is an interesting project.

I think a good title for this thread would be "What the vinodor of an OCD cigar smoker looks like"


It looks like it will turn out good though, you might want to slowly start taking out those plates unless for some reason you are having low RH problems you've got more than enough humidity sources in there.

Looking forward to pics of the final product.

 

[Bartolomeo]

Update on Humidor:

Had the RH and Temp levels where I wanted them but had a issue with the condensation occuring, so I wanted to fix that issue and move forward. Here are some random pics and comments

-My goal is to have all of my crap on the floor to be below the second notch up, so I can put my shelves in when they are ready, so basically nothing above that height is my plan, so far so good

-I have about 3.5 lbs of beads in the humi spread out in bags, Overkill I know, but it will keep the RH more stable when opening/closing the humi

-I have 4 different brands of Hygrometers but all are accurate so I cant complain

I use to get that fine dust from the beads so I came up with a solution that works for me. I take the beads and put them in a strainer to shake out the excess small particles which helps reduce the fine dust you some time see in your humidor. You lose about 1-2% but not a big deal when you have no more dust

Pic of the leftovers in the sink

Some humidity sheets I got from Heartfelt, I was originally going to use it to suck the excess condensation but dont like that idea now b/c of possible mildew/mold problems down the road

Bought a thin, rubber cutting board @ Walmart to shape a funnel to drain the excess condensation down the middle of the exisitng channel, used Black duct tape to help. Its important when you do this, to keep the original ridges along the side of the channel so the condensation doesnt spill on either side. The White cutting board was an exact shape of the channel to help out.

Bought a butter dish to collect the condensation as an experiement. I dried my 65% beads completely White so they could suck up all of the moisture. The cutting board drains into the butter dish, I use a stick or a pen to move the beads around once in a while to make sure all moisture in the dish is equal. I then moved my fan to blow on the channel and bead dish to help dry it out, this has helped immensely. I like this dish b/c its clear and I can see whats going on, I have a bigger one but its White.

Fan on top of beads blowing down on bead dish, I need to rework this to clean it up a little bit

 

[Kingantz]

Wow. That's really putting it to it, excellent job. I got two Urbina 28 bottles (one sits on top the other). I got two 1/2 lb bag of beads (one in top, one in bottom), put in boxes, shut the door. They've both held rock solid RH between 68 and 70% with temps in the upper 60's. I did add a cheap fan picked up at Walmart to the bottom of each to circulate air, but didn't really need to.

 

[Marcos]

Excellent job on this project! So nice to see others enthusiasm with this hobby and the pictures are a great touch.

 

[bfisher88]

Man you sure are using a lot of space in there. I tossed a deep dish plate with beads on the bottom below the first rack, and a tupperware with beads on the top rack and called it a day. Doesn't budge off of 65% almost ever.

 

[Bartolomeo]

Waiting for their new mansion to be ready

Man you sure are using a lot of space in there. I tossed a deep dish plate with beads on the bottom below the first rack, and a tupperware with beads on the top rack and called it a day. Doesn't budge off of 65% almost ever.

Glad its working out for you.....different locations have different weather patterns so I need some more control here in NC compared to UT I would say

1. Is yours plugged in?
2. Do you use a fan at all?

Thanks for your help in advance,

Bart

 

[Bartolomeo]

Here is an update on my humi:

-My Vino ideal range is 62-65%RH and 65-67* Temp, currently I am achieving this since 95% of my smokes are CC and I have found they like a lower RH than the NC

-I have a fan blowing up @ the front glass of the Vino and a fan on the top shelf blowing towards the front glass for great airflow, I have found the added airflow benefits my Vino rather than just using the original fan the Vino came with

-I have farted around with this Vino the last couple of weeks and definitely overanalyzed everything :lol: but got it where I want/need it for my evergrowing stash

-I put a board in front of the Vino fan to help spread the air out a little more and really like this idea, this will allow me to put boxes directly in front/top/bottom of the fan and not have to worry about it. There is enough room between the board and fan as well. The middle section of the fan sucks air in where the four sides blow the cool air out, learned that as well. Also with the board, I am able to push the Vino metal shelf all of the way back, so I am not eliminating any room using the board

-I took the Heartfelt beads out of my condensation tray b/c it would be non distilled water accumulating in there and making a mess, this way I just dump it every couple of days/weeks depending on how much is in there

-The fans and Vino are plugged into an surge protector, which is plugged into the Ranco temp controller, so all three run at the same time and no need for a timer for the two fans

-I am waiting on shelves/drawers so will use boxes and cedar trays for now

-I replaced my Oasis sponge with water beads

-I will post pics of the smokes very soon

-I tried the following scenarios with no luck......unplugged w/ no fan, unplugged w/ fan, plugged w/ no fan, plugged w/ fan.........This is located in my office on the second floor in my NC home, it does get hot here but the room temp avg is about 73* during day and 71* at night in the Summer

-I left the hole at the bottom of the Vino open, to let the Vino "breathe" if you will

-It looks messy right now but it will be cleaned up when the shelves/drawers get here

-Again, I overanalyzed everything but it works correctly and thats what was most important to me

Thanks,

Bart

 

[Nimrod]

How close do you live to the Sun?
I am no electrician but those wire connections should be a but-joint with shrink wrap.

If you fill up the Vino with cigars, the RH will stabilize better.

Pretty cool setup.

 

[Black Plague]

Now I don't mean to sound snarky, but if your that OCD, you at least have a good sense of humor about it, so more power to ya...


...but for everyone else that uses a Vinotemp as humidor, you don't really need to do all that shit, do you?

I've been considering picking one up as a nicer alternative to my coolerdor. In my current coolerdor, I just use two bags of beads in the coolerdor, one high and one low, and an Oust fan and that keeps the humidity nice and even throughout and I don't even remember the last time I had to refill the beads.

I figured something simialr would suffice for a Vinotemp. Seeing how it has a fan in the back, do I even need an Oust fan in there?

 

[Hylan85]

I've had my Winodor running for over a month now, it's sitting at a perfect 65% RH, 70 degrees fahrenheit. I've done nothing special besides clean the plastic smell out, add beads, and over load it with cedar boxes filled, to the point that I can barely keep the door closed. But that's just my experience, YMMV.

The only thing I did note is that when the fridge ran more often, it would drop significantly in RH, so I setup my thermostat to run a range from 67-72 degrees this way on the warmer days it wouldn't run nearly as often.

 

[souldog]

Now I don't mean to sound snarky, but if your that OCD, you at least have a good sense of humor about it, so more power to ya...

Seriously, huh?


Boy Barty are you gonna be miffed when you run out of storage room in 2 months!! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

 

[wavescrashing]

Dude, that is pretty damn detailed. I personally like to sit and relax while having a stogie, and thus don't want to put that much work into the entire process, but kudos for some OCD work on that. I agree on the room situation though.

 

[donzz]

You say you want to install your trays or shelves on the 2 nd slot? The oasis and fan look to be about 1/4 in. below that level, I think that would be too close.I would like to know what others think,as I dont use any slots below the 4 th with a similar set up

 

[Captain Leafheart]

...but for everyone else that uses a Vinotemp as humidor, you don't really need to do all that shit, do you?

I just wiped down the insides, put in a pound of beads at the bottom and keep my smokes in cedar boxes and a humi. Steady temp and RH and no condensation.

 

[Bartolomeo]

...but for everyone else that uses a Vinotemp as humidor, you don't really need to do all that shit, do you?

I just wiped down the insides, put in a pound of beads at the bottom and keep my smokes in cedar boxes and a humi. Steady temp and RH and no condensation.

I tried that and all of the other easy solutions, there was always an issue, got it perfect now and cant complain

Bart