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@Edgestar 28 Bottle Cooler Owners

Hylan85

Hylan85

Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
399
After a few days of conditioning to eliminate the smell inside my Edgestar, it's finally up and running. I tried searching for this, but haven't had much luck, so I have a few questions. I do apologize if they've been answered previously, but I'm not looking for experiences with Vinotemps, Haier, GE, etc, I'm specifically looking for people that have experience with the same unit I have.

1) I know people using Vinotemps were plugging the drain and using the hard plastic binder divider to route condensation into the bowl of HF beads, have you done the same with the Edgestar 28? I tried used some black silicone I had here to plug it, and am waiting for it to dry, but I'm curious what method others have used to deal with the humidity.

2) At the "Warmest" temperature setting on the wine cooler, I'm holding about 62 degrees, which seems a little low considering I was gunning for 65 degrees, 65% RH (my HF beads are 65%), is this normal? Is the lower temperature a problem?

3) Have any of you found a very shallow round bowl to hold the beads on the bottom? Preferably square/rectangle so it's situated well?

I think that's all I've got for now, I haven't added my cigars to the fridge yet, I'm waiting to see the inside start smelling like Cedar from the boxes I stuck into it.
Thanks for the help.


Daniel.
 
I have one as a backup humidor as my cabinet is full and three desktops are full. I put my bowl of beads at the top and it seems to work better for mine. It holds right around 64-66 RH. I too have concerns about it getting too cold in mine. I have it in a room that gets pretty warm so the cooler stays at around 65 degrees most of the time but I have seen it get down to 63 or so. Then I just have a paper towel wadded up and shoved into the area where the drain is and it catches the condensation. I have the paper towel shaped to a point and I have a small coffee mug on top of a small empty cigar box underneath the drain area and the paper towel drains into the cup. It works pretty good but is definitely not high tech. The bag of beads is kind of a backup incase the water drains to the side and it will drain into the beads in the bag...I just keep an eye on it and I haven't had an issue with any boxes getting wet or anything....Definitely not the best solution but it works pretty good.


IMG_1338.jpg


IMG_1339.jpg
 
I use the top to a lasagna pan to hold the
beads. They sell them at the Family Dollar
Store for $1.75 ea. I cut it down from 3" or 4"
high to about 1" high with scissors.
It's approx. an 11"x14" rectangle. It really
gives the beads plenty of surface area, and
works great. I use 1/2# of beads at the top
and 1/2# of beads on the bottom, and a 2oz. tube
of beads in each custom drawer(from ChasDen).

Oh, sorry, I have a VT.
Never mind. jk

Chemyst :cool:
 
I should rephrase, that seemed harsh. When I said no other manufacturers, I was referring to their drain issue, since the VT's is different then the Edgestar, we don't have the basin at the bottom as one example.
 
As far as the temp issue...once you're running the cooler for a while, it'll break in and you'll see the temp come up on the lowest setting. I've adjusted mine maybe 3 times so far to keep it under 70. As far as plugging the drain hole...I just plugged mine earlier today. I was having no problems with the RH, until I actually leveled the unit. I had found moisture sitting in the bottom of the cooler and got concerned, thinking that the moisture coming in was because it wasn't draining out the back. Once I leveled the cooler (it was really WAY off), no more moisture inside, but my RH was now holding around 60%-63% and sometimes lower depending on which hygro I was looking at.

However...it's especially hot here now. Ambient temp for the room it's in, is 85 right now and the ambient RH is 79%. I just recharged all the beads maybe 30 minutes ago and the internal RH is 57% and 59% since putting the hygro's back in the cooler after reading 79% outside for about 20 minutes.
I changed the temp control about the same time I leveled the cooler, so it's cycling more to stay cooler, so that's playing into the RH swing I've seen over the past couple of days. Which leads me back to why I plugged the drain hole. It's strange because everything was steady at 67/65 for quick a while, but I did add well over 100 sticks in boxes in less than a weeks time, so that plays in too. I'll post more as things progress.
 
I bought a cheap black plastic trash can from Staples, cut out a long section that was as wide as the top portion of the area that directs the moisture runoff, and then used a heat gun to shape it to funnel the condensation down onto the tray of beads on the bottom. I attached it using Gorilla tape, which worked perfectly, though it does smell so I had to let it air out for a few days. I just went to Big Lots and found a glass dish for the beads, it holds about a pound and a half. So far my humidity holds at a steady 67%, though it can rise when the dual PC fans kick on to about 70%, but it always drops down again fairly quick. When the thermo cooler kicks on the humidity will drop to 60%, but again it levels back to 67% after a few minutes. I bought two large PC fans that were piggy back capable on the power cords, connected them to a regular power cord with the molex connector on it and then used a dual time lamp switch like the kind at Home Depot used to turn on your indoor lights automatically. So far this setup works flawlessly, I am really happy with it!
 
klipsch said:
I have no room for fans... :laugh:
Click to expand...

I wanted to put in an order to get some of those shelves made, but I can't get in contact with the guy. :(

Oh, and yes, I did plug the drain with silicone.
 
My trays and shelves came from ChasDen on one of the other boards. There is a member here in CP that makes trays as well, but I don't have his contact information.
 
klipsch said:
As far as the temp issue...once you're running the cooler for a while, it'll break in and you'll see the temp come up on the lowest setting. I've adjusted mine maybe 3 times so far to keep it under 70. As far as plugging the drain hole...I just plugged mine earlier today. I was having no problems with the RH, until I actually leveled the unit. I had found moisture sitting in the bottom of the cooler and got concerned, thinking that the moisture coming in was because it wasn't draining out the back. Once I leveled the cooler (it was really WAY off), no more moisture inside, but my RH was now holding around 60%-63% and sometimes lower depending on which hygro I was looking at.

However...it's especially hot here now. Ambient temp for the room it's in, is 85 right now and the ambient RH is 79%. I just recharged all the beads maybe 30 minutes ago and the internal RH is 57% and 59% since putting the hygro's back in the cooler after reading 79% outside for about 20 minutes.
I changed the temp control about the same time I leveled the cooler, so it's cycling more to stay cooler, so that's playing into the RH swing I've seen over the past couple of days. Which leads me back to why I plugged the drain hole. It's strange because everything was steady at 67/65 for quick a while, but I did add well over 100 sticks in boxes in less than a weeks time, so that plays in too. I'll post more as things progress.
Click to expand...

Update to the above posted Temp/RH readings two days later... TOP 64/64% BOTTOM 65/62% Ambient Temp is 80. I may need to do some box tetris to get some better airflow along the floor (the two boxes on the floor and adding two more above is when things went kooky). I knew I was borderline on pushing the capacity of the cooler with the amount of beads in there. But it'll settle... ;)
 
I could rename this post as Pushing the Limits of an EdgeStar 28

So following up on all of my posts above...it got hotter and hotter around here, and my cooler was sitting in the only room of my apartment that isn't air conditioned. That was the purpose of getting a wine cooler...so I didn't have to run an AC to keep my cigars healthy...right?
As it got hotter and hotter, the cooler temp was creeping into the low 70's range where it used to read 65 degrees steady. So I'd adjust the temp and wait. Temp would come down even though it was getting hotter still, but worse...the RH% was now having difficulty holding even 60% even though I was re-routing the condensation to a plate full of 65% beads (which quickly became a plate full of water) and fully charging all the other beads throughout the cooler almost daily.
RH% now sitting around 57% at the top of the cooler, and sometimes as high as 61% at the bottom where the plate full of water was sitting. I had the cooler set at the coldest I ever had, remembering how I used to be concerned about whether I'd ever be able to get the temp to come up higher than 64 degrees when it was new. The cooler temp was 71 degrees again...still having RH problems described above...and the ambient temp in the room was 91 degrees (a 20 degree difference).
I finally broke...I decided to rearrange my apartment a bit to move the EdgeStar into my bedroom. Last night, in my air conditioned bedroom I turned down the thermostat to where I used to keep it when the unit was about a month old or so. This morning, the ambient temp was 73 degrees and when I checked the cooler it was steady at 64/64% top and 65/67% bottom.
Before moving the cooler, the constant cycling of the cooler fan trying to maintain the desired temperature made it impossible to maintain any type of internal humidity, even though the ambient RH was 75% and higher.

The lesson learned...Even though wine coolers are great for keeping your sticks at a more favorable temperature and humidity...you can't expect the impossible... :rolleyes:
 
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