Thermoelectric wine cooler drying and curing - DIY

gooshpoo

Well-Known Member
I have tried to cycle the dehumidifier and just set a target on and off. and as long as i keep it around 55. everything is curing fine i couldnt tell a difference between something that took 7 days and something that took 14 days.
I did see a huge dif when i did it at 60f and 65f both sucked tasted like hay still taste like hay after being in the grove bags for 2 months. Im sticking with 55f from now on with a minimum 7 day.
 

Quack the Duck

Well-Known Member
What is the best way to get the plastic odors and previous harvest smell out of the fridge? I have tried tossing a thin pan of baking soda in there but it hasn't helped much.
 

beer30

Member
What is the best way to get the plastic odors and previous harvest smell out of the fridge? I have tried tossing a thin pan of baking soda in there but it hasn't helped much.
Mix some water and baking soda and scrub the inside and then rinse. If that doesn't do it then you can always try an ozone generator. It's what I use to get smells out of stuff. This last tote I bought must of come straight off the boat as it reeked of idk what. Of course be careful with ozone as it is not good for you or your plants.
 
So, I hate filling other people's threads with MY problems, but I am going to continue to do so here because I don't want to fry anything, or cause a fire. The other aspect of sharing my difficulties is that they may help others who are as inept as myself in trying to build their own thermoelectric drying/curing device. I considered DM'ing Hook Daddy, but then others wouldn't benefit from seeing how to approach the build from with shaky electrical, or fabrication skills.
So, with that out of the way, here is the issue I am facing now, and hope someone will be able to enlighten me on a solution.
In Hook Daddys initial description of how he stripped the dehumidifier of most of the electronics, which were unnecessary, he stated in post #3 of his thread:


I first opened the Inkbird and removed the humidity sensor connector from the circuit board. It is smaller than the sensor itself so you can drill a smaller hole in the fridge later. Here’s what it looks like inside the Inkbird with the connector on, then removed.


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Connector removed.


Then I stripped all the useless stuff off the dehumidifier leaving just the unit itself. Here’s with the front of the case removed.


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Here’s the rest removed.

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There is a small circuit board you can leave if you want. I removed it just putting the humidifier and fan power together with the power wires from the small plug in transformer, of course positive to positive, negative to negative. If you don’t know about wiring get help or just leave it as is. I only remove the case and junk to save space. Oh I ditched the water collection bin as well, the water will drip from the fins of the dehumidifier into the channel in back of the fridge made for draining.

To the bolded: I understand connecting the power wires from the dehumidifier part, to the fan on it. My question though relates to wires from the "small plug-in transformer". I will include pictures of the other electronics so maybe someone can point out where the transformer is in the dehumidifier I am using in my build.
I am assuming that if I connect 110 ac power to the fan and dehu without the transformer, I will fry something as the purpose of the transformer is to step down and rectify the 110v ac to 12v dc? Am I right? If so, do I need to include the transformer? If so, how do I connect to it? I don't see the transformer in Hook Daddys build. I am confused. Here is the circuit board i removed, but still have:
View attachment 5369527

View attachment 5369528

Gooshpoo said," Wiring is the same Cut the Red and black wire from the Circuit board and wire directly to a 12v power supply. connect to a humidity controller ." So, I'm not sure how to connect to a 12v power supply is my question I guess.
Also, I'm kind of a hack when it comes to fabricating, or understanding how things work. But, I'm sure I'm not necessarily alone in that regard. Hope my questions help someone else too.
Did you figure it out? I have the same dehumidifier and just put that entire board set up in the back of my fridge.
 

Drb63

Member
First run in the Koolatron! I will definitely be building another unit as I’ve had to harvest my hydro plant in chunks due to sheer size. Packed lightly on the first go around, going to pack it to the gills after the first cuts are done drying.
I used an AC infinity controller/probe and have nothing but wonderful things to say about it. Well worth the extra couple bucks over the Inkbird unit as everything else I have is also AC Infinity.
 

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Drb63

Member
After 14 days in the Koolatron, I removed 8 ounces from the top two shelves and put the nugs in a half pound Grove bag. Calibrated hygrometer inside the Grove bag is reading 60% humidity and has not budged in 24 hours. As a new grower literally fresh off my first run, I’m blown away by how easy and effective the Koolatron method is.
 

Drb63

Member
Second load from first grow going into the Koolatron and I really packed it in there this time. I know others have been lowering humidity by roughly 1% daily, I’m doing the same and have my buffer set to 3%. Despite this, humidity is still going up to around 75% on swings up. (If my humidity trigger is set to 70%, it will swing from 75% to 67%. Are these swings too large/am I lowering humidity too fast? Trying to get below 70% as quickly as possible.
 

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gooshpoo

Well-Known Member
I just keep my temps around 55 and set it to 75%RH and let it stable for 24 hours. then take it down 3% a day for the first few days . I normally see around a 5~8% swing wile its doing its on off thing. I have a 1% buffer set for the ac infinity controller. as i get into the and stay in the 60s i slow down to 1%. But personally i think as long as the temp is low u can go fast if u like. also really depends on the bud.
 

beer30

Member
If one is to believe the cannatrol way of using dew point at 55° and 75%RH you are at 47.2° dew point. So you are close to the dew point of the old 60/60 method which is 46.1°.

I had to hang dry most of my last crop cause it doesn't all fit in my box. I had my humidifier turn off and on by Water vapor pressure (1450-1400 or 54.5-53.5 dew point) instead of RH and 8 days in they are close to dry I would say and still sticky as can be. Temps got as high as 75° since we got a warm spell and I didn't have the a/c setup yet. No hay smell or anything of the sort. The blueberry still smells like blueberry. Stuck all but one in my diy cannntrol since I won't have much time in the next week to fuss over them like I normally would.

In case anyone was wondering the test run of my diy cannatrol made outa ebay/amazon parts and a 27gal tote was successful. I did have to give up holding temp steady in order to have a stable WVP but it does work. Took roughly 2 weeks to dry which is way longer than I had hoped but I was still testing and screwing with things for the first week. But once the flower was removed and put in jars the RH in the jars never moved from 59% so it was likely "dry" before I took it out, so it got a few days of "cure". So I can see the cannatrol way of starting at like 1500 ramping down to 1325 then ramping back up to 1450 working in 8 days. Maybe being a bit more gentle on the ramp down would be best as others seem to of found. But the cold temps from what I have seen with this experiment are not as important as many make them out to be. At least for the dreaded hay smell. Did I probably lose some terps? Sure. Do I care? No. Am I going to build 2 more of these things just for my single 4x4 grow space? No, for me not worth it. Takes up too much space and I am space limited in my house.
 

smoke and coke

Well-Known Member
So far it seems to have stabilized around 80-85rh at 55f. Had to go out of town for two weeks so im hoping i can get this dialed in remotely… i set the inkbird to 80 for now so it doesn't run 24/7
Are you remotely soaking up the water in the drip tray too? Or is someone there to do it for you. Good luck I would be nervous to go away but I guess it can be done.
 

dwc420letsgo

Well-Known Member
Humidity slowly but surely going down. Took a bit to figure out the right set point and calibration but I tried to match the inkbird to the wireless sensor and figured that if I set the SV on the inkbird too low, the dehumidifier was probably freezing since the rh would remain steady. Def would’ve hang dry for a day or two before if I had time but i had to do it like this
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