000420
terpenophenolic
Why would you use a bud dryer in the veg or flower stage????????
...it's for the drying the bud stage....
Bud dryer - manicured to smoke in 3 days
- Thread starter Al B. Fuct
- Start date
...it's for the drying the bud stage....
GoodFriend
Lumberjack
would a cardboard box work the same for this?
what ya'll think???
that'd be easy...
what ya'll think???
that'd be easy...
disasterstrikes
Active Member
Why would you use a bud dryer in the veg or flower stage????????
HAHA...nah its not like that...i was referring to using the same concept same design, but with modifications. Anyway ever since then i went ahead and implemented my idea of using two computer fans on opposite sides of a storage box for AIR CIRCULATION. I left out the heat source, so its just good old room temperature air flowing thru.
000420
terpenophenolic
LOL..ok i see, I saw another one of your posts on another thread.... now i see what you meant....LOL....i was thinking what the hell? at first...LOL
sportsguy1598
Well-Known Member
Hey Al I'm not very good with electronics at all do you think you could walk me through this dryer with terms that are a little bit dumbed down please? Thanks!
VictorVIcious
Well-Known Member
well, not to jump Al's thread, yes there is. I used the idea's Al presents, the heat source is a food dehydrator. And unless you are going to spend several hundred dollars on one, you will have to make your own temperature control. I posted the build in DIY. Al's electric supply is 220..ok 240 then. VV
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
hmm, I haven't checked into this thread for a while...
Let's catch up... but I think I'll leave out any commentary on the use of ye olde bud dryer as a grow box.
If you want to use a commercially made unit, you will have to open it up and put the dimmer in series with the dehydrator's heating element. Putting the dimmer in the feed to the entire unit will wreck the motor, if it spins at all.
If you're in doubt of how to wire this up, seriously, don't try it. There's mains AC voltage present in this ckt and it can be very dangerous if wired wrong or if your fingers touch the wrong stuff when it is live. This was drafted for folks who have the basic electrical understanding necessary to install a light dimmer without killing themselves!
If modifying a commercially made dehydrator unit, just put an incandescent light dimmer in series with the heating element in the dehydrator (cut one lead going to the htg element and wire in the dimmer).
The commercial dehydrator's thermostat may not go low enough to suit 29C; be prepared to disconnect the thermostat from the commercial unit and replace it with something more appropriate, like the Jaycar QT7200.
Folks clever with a soldering iron can open up the QT7200, desolder the little blue thermistor, lengthen its leads with some 2-conductor speaker wire and put the thermistor in the airflow in the dehydrator unit. This way, the entire thermostat unit does not have to be mounted inside the dehydrator, just its thermistor. The QT7200 unit can then be mounted to the exterior of the dehydrator, allowing one to see the LCD temp display and allowing easy access to the temp control buttons.
BudDryer v1.0 has gone through another engineering pass (now called BudDryer v2.0) and has been fully rebuilt since I wrote this, inclusive of installing a modified QT7200, the thermistor remote mounted as described above. There's now 6x 25W resistors in parallel on the heatsink, both fans have been replaced with Sunon 120mm axials and some knee-hi stockings have been put over the air inlet to the heatsink to keep gnats and dust out of it.
Sorry, I wish I could make this simpler, but it really can't be made much simpler! You DO need some basic electrical/electronic skills to build this critter or mod up a commercially made unit. If you are not confident with your skills, find someone who is or find another way to dry your buds.
Let's catch up... but I think I'll leave out any commentary on the use of ye olde bud dryer as a grow box.
No, because the commercial dehydrator will have a fan motor in it, which is incompatible with the incandescent dimmer used for the heating element. If the fan motor is run on a light dimmer, it will spin at full speed when the dimmer is set to full voltage and will stall when the dimmer is dialed down, even a little. Dimmers are not designed to handle inductive loads found in motors, only purely resistive loads as found in an incandescent lamp filament or a plain ol resistor.
If you want to use a commercially made unit, you will have to open it up and put the dimmer in series with the dehydrator's heating element. Putting the dimmer in the feed to the entire unit will wreck the motor, if it spins at all.
How much dumber do you need it? There's a schematic circuit representation on page 1 of the thread; this is the clearest and simplest way I know of to communicate a wiring diagram. Just follow the black lines- those are wires!
If you're in doubt of how to wire this up, seriously, don't try it. There's mains AC voltage present in this ckt and it can be very dangerous if wired wrong or if your fingers touch the wrong stuff when it is live. This was drafted for folks who have the basic electrical understanding necessary to install a light dimmer without killing themselves!
I didn't build the dimmer 'switch' (they are not switches, I hate that term). It's just a dirt-common, 500W incandescent dimmer from a hdwe store.
My AC mains voltage is 240V. However, the ckt as drawn will work for 120V. If building from scratch, just use resistors of 1/2 the value I specified for 240V.
If modifying a commercially made dehydrator unit, just put an incandescent light dimmer in series with the heating element in the dehydrator (cut one lead going to the htg element and wire in the dimmer).
The commercial dehydrator's thermostat may not go low enough to suit 29C; be prepared to disconnect the thermostat from the commercial unit and replace it with something more appropriate, like the Jaycar QT7200.
Folks clever with a soldering iron can open up the QT7200, desolder the little blue thermistor, lengthen its leads with some 2-conductor speaker wire and put the thermistor in the airflow in the dehydrator unit. This way, the entire thermostat unit does not have to be mounted inside the dehydrator, just its thermistor. The QT7200 unit can then be mounted to the exterior of the dehydrator, allowing one to see the LCD temp display and allowing easy access to the temp control buttons.
BudDryer v1.0 has gone through another engineering pass (now called BudDryer v2.0) and has been fully rebuilt since I wrote this, inclusive of installing a modified QT7200, the thermistor remote mounted as described above. There's now 6x 25W resistors in parallel on the heatsink, both fans have been replaced with Sunon 120mm axials and some knee-hi stockings have been put over the air inlet to the heatsink to keep gnats and dust out of it.
Sorry, I wish I could make this simpler, but it really can't be made much simpler! You DO need some basic electrical/electronic skills to build this critter or mod up a commercially made unit. If you are not confident with your skills, find someone who is or find another way to dry your buds.
Lacy
New Member
yes. I hate moldy weed. I had to throw out about 4 ounces of my weed last year due to mold so this year I want to build myself a good bud dryer.
Thnaks for this thread. Someone else gave me a link one day a while ago.
Thnaks for this thread. Someone else gave me a link one day a while ago.
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
no prob, Lacy.yes. I hate moldy weed. I had to throw out about 4 ounces of my weed last year due to mold so this year I want to build myself a good bud dryer.Thnaks for this thread. Someone else gave me a link one day a while ago.
Whether you make your own from scratch or mod up a food dehydrator, the only trick to making it work well is to limit the temp to 29C. Once you get a feel for your particular unit, you'll be able to predict the finishing time to the hour.
We've had an awful lot of slow, steady rain recently. Avg ambient RH has been well above 85% for a couple of weeks. Got a clothesline under the porch roof but can't even get clothes to dry. I'd be screwed without the dryer when we get monsoons like this. It'd take a cpl weeks to get 'em smokable. Even in wet weather, the dryer gets a load of buds done in 4 days max.
Danny Eire
Active Member
would this do?? u can clearly see it says 29degrees in the description Excalibur 5 Tray Dehydrator White
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
Yes, if that dehydrator will stay down to 29C, it will do, but [FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA]£179.00 is DEAR. If you could not build one like mine for 20 quid with brand new parts, I've be very surprised.
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Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
tokes, good to hear. 
Be careful about 'false dry' buds, tho. The outside of the buds will of course dry first. I don't consider them truly dry, safe to bag (or jar) up for long-term storage with no chance of mould, unless the stems snap instead of just bend.
I dry mine until the very outer parts of the buds are crispy dry but there's still a little bit of bendyness left in the stems, then I chuck them in a tupperware for a day or so. Moisture will wick out of stems and through the buds, making their moisture content even and returning the bud material to a springy condition, ready to store or smoke.
Be careful about 'false dry' buds, tho. The outside of the buds will of course dry first. I don't consider them truly dry, safe to bag (or jar) up for long-term storage with no chance of mould, unless the stems snap instead of just bend.
I dry mine until the very outer parts of the buds are crispy dry but there's still a little bit of bendyness left in the stems, then I chuck them in a tupperware for a day or so. Moisture will wick out of stems and through the buds, making their moisture content even and returning the bud material to a springy condition, ready to store or smoke.
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
Yes, you could do it with just one fan drawing air out of the box.
Scent is always an issue when drying buds. However, the dryer mixes large volumes of air with scents, dissipating them- somewhat.
Ozone is extremely effective at killing scents. I have placed a UV fluoro ozonator (a Uvonair 3000) near my dryer's output so air from the dryer is immediately mixed with O3. Kills scents dead. I can (and often do) have a pound or more in my dryer and you absolutely won't know it's there, even if you are in the same room with it.
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
That's not quite as much water weight loss as I would expect. I usually figure on losing about 75% of wet weight when they are fully dry. Check your buds again in a day or two just to make sure they were not 'false dry' as I mentioned above.
All homebrew dryers like this will perform slightly differently unless all the bits used are identical to mine. 2 days in the dryer sounds a bit short, but your fans could be moving more air, your intake air could have been lower humidity, etc, accounting for faster performance. Usually takes 3 days for my dryer to bring freshly trimmed buds to smokable water content levels.
All homebrew dryers like this will perform slightly differently unless all the bits used are identical to mine. 2 days in the dryer sounds a bit short, but your fans could be moving more air, your intake air could have been lower humidity, etc, accounting for faster performance. Usually takes 3 days for my dryer to bring freshly trimmed buds to smokable water content levels.
I'm a few weeks away from flowering, which puts me quite a few weeks away from curing. But I want to build one of these units in time, just wondering what the estimated parts cost would be? If starting from scratch with nothing, could i get a parts list? Also, as for the hanging the racks from the lid. Have you thought about attaching a drawer/cupboard handle to the lid? And the maybe have a hanging hook above nearby to hang it from while you transport to and from the dryer. I've got many more questions about this project, but I'll wait for a reply before getting to them. Thanks for taking the time