falconman515's NewAir AW-280E 28 Bottle Wineador Build!

[chipsah]

Sorry if you already covered this, are the dimensions of the trays 12 1/2" W x 7 1/2" D x 2 1/4" H? My AW-280E is on its way and I want to make sure I order the same size trays you have, I love the look (especially with the pulls on). Thanks for the very complete walk through!!!

[Sadden]

Email forrest and tell hime your model number. He will make em to fit.

[macsauce13]

Great call on the beads. I've been using it for almost two years now. The same beads have held at 64-65 with water added every three months or so. The RH bumps back up to normal within just a few minutes of opening the coolers as well. And I have about 10lbs I can freshen up with any time I get the urge. Has been such a great solution for me, and I also use the aquarium bags.

The wineador looks great, I'm really jealous of the setup!

Chris - first off,thanks for outlining your progress in setting up your wineador. It gave me that little push over the edge to go for it! My cooler is on the way as I write this.
Any luck in talking you into briefly going over how you set up the kitty litter?
Listen...if you ever travel to the Orlando, FL area, an outing for good beer and even better cigars are on me!
RR

[Lockspur]

Originally Posted by badbriar

Chris - first off,thanks for outlining your progress in setting up your wineador. It gave me that little push over the edge to go for it! My cooler is on the way as I write this.
Any luck in talking you into briefly going over how you set up the kitty litter?
Listen...if you ever travel to the Orlando, FL area, an outing for good beer and even better cigars are on me!
RR

I can help here. I just set mine up. SO easy.

Go buy the odorless Exquisicat and about 4-5 of these:



Fill the bags. Not stuffed, but full. I tied off the ends with the draw strings on the bag. I use Heartfelts syringe to add water. Each bag gets 4 of those sprinkled all over the top of the bags.



Lay them in, close the door. On the warmest setting, it's rock steady at 65F and 66RH.

Scotty-
Appreciate help, brother! What is your wineador project?
RR

[Lockspur]

Originally Posted by badbriar

Scotty-
Appreciate help, brother! What is your wineador project?
RR

I've since filled out the bottom with boxes. Waiting on the drawer units from GolfNut (Forrest) and it'll be finished.

[Gabe215]

Did you say that actually pour water (shoot a syringe at) the kitty litter? And could if so could I drip distiller water on the bag, recently bought beads but I could've bought 24 pounds of litter for the same price. And I still need more!

[Lockspur]

Originally Posted by Gabe215

Did you say that actually pour water (shoot a syringe at) the kitty litter? And could if so could I drip distiller water on the bag, recently bought beads but I could've bought 24 pounds of litter for the same price. And I still need more!

I sprayed the water directly onto the bags of kitty litter. 4 syringes full.

[Lockspur]

To clarify, 4 syringes full...PER BAG. So 16 total.

[AdamJoshua]

If you are all going to deal in "these things" you might want to take it off the forums and deal in private, these are trademarked items and it's not too cool to even imply any wrong doing on CA's part by posting about it in public.

Scotty... Kinda cool...my SPT is same color and has same handle as your cooler. If I have this correct, they are all made in PRC anyway. Probably just have the different brands on separate floors! Not sure, but think that most coolers use the same peltier unit.
Very cool wineador ya got there!
RR

[Lockspur]

Thanks! Hoping to do another one in a couple weeks.

[falconman515]

Got this PM form a user asking a question about if I run the cooler or not.

Here was his PM and then my reply.

BOTL: Quick question for you on your build, for the wineador build you did, does the wineador actually run as in you plug it n a power source and it runs or are you just using the shell as a box? I havent seen this completely spelled out as what to do with this and what setting you run it on?


ME: No the Wineadors main purpose should be temperature control. I live in the Valley of California with some nasty hot summer months and found when I first started a humidor would exceed 70degrees VERY easy and got to high to be safe for my sticks, so I decided to take the plunge into something to control the temp and first bought a cheap 8 bottle rig with 2 trays but filled that fast so decided to go balls out on the big 28 bottle.

On the Newairs the highest temp you can set it at is 66 .... but when using a hygrometer with temperature as well the internal temp runs a little off so during the summer I normally run it the highest temp of 66 and that gives me about 67-68 degrees in my cooler all summer ... and along with my kitty litter the temp and RH stay Rock Solid!

Now all depending on where you live the fall and winter months are different for me ... I turn the unit all fall and winter time as my ambient temperature in my house holds my wine cooler to a 63-64 degree temp in the box at all times ... all I do is run a small fan in the unit to move around the air and humidity and open the door to shift the RH to keep it from building up stale pockets of less RH.

But ultimately a wine cooler is for one reason only ... temperature control, so you should always be running the cooler to keep the temps down during hot months and figure out if it's needed during your cold months (more then likely not).

Hope this helps.

[AdamJoshua]

I run mine as well but i know / have read that a few of the longer standing BOTLs here have winadors and never plug them in, just depends on where you live but they seem to be popular for the volume, astheticts, 'fridge quality' seals among other things.

[Lockspur]

I run my KoldFront 28-bottle cooler at the warmest setting, and it stays at 65F and 65RH.

[AdamJoshua]

Originally Posted by AdamJoshua

I run mine as well but i know / have read that a few of the longer standing BOTLs here have winadors and never plug them in, just depends on where you live but they seem to be popular for the volume, astheticts, 'fridge quality' seals among other things.

I have actually stopped running mine, after a while got a little condensation in it, not enough to ruin anything I caught it in time, I ended up just unplugging it and it has been perfect ever since, I might actually disconnect the cooling unit and plug it back in just for the lighting effects.

I also dumped another 2 pounds of beads in it, huge difference. Just like "always buy bigger than you think you need", always put more beads in than you think you need.

[cort]

Originally Posted by AdamJoshua

I have actually stopped running mine, after a while got a little condensation in it, not enough to ruin anything I caught it in time, I ended up just unplugging it and it has been perfect ever since, I might actually disconnect the cooling unit and plug it back in just for the lighting effects.

I also dumped another 2 pounds of beads in it, huge difference. Just like "always buy bigger than you think you need", always put more beads in than you think you need.

I ran mine for years and recently the board went out on me. I was too lazy to fix it for a few months and realized that My cigars smoked a lot better and the humidity recovered much faster after standing there with the door open with a dumb look on my face trying to decide what to smoke for 10 mins.

I never really had any humidity issues while it was plugged in but i could tell the affect the fans blowing 24/7 had on my smokes. Now I have 1 cpu fan blowing at 3 volts (barely moving) just to keep the humidity moving a bit and couldn't be happier.

Adam, how many total pounds of beads do you have in there now?

[AdamJoshua]

Originally Posted by cort

I ran mine for years and recently the board went out on me. I was too lazy to fix it for a few months and realized that My cigars smoked a lot better and the humidity recovered much faster after standing there with the door open with a dumb look on my face trying to decide what to smoke for 10 mins.

I never really had any humidity issues while it was plugged in but i could tell the affect the fans blowing 24/7 had on my smokes. Now I have 1 cpu fan blowing at 3 volts (barely moving) just to keep the humidity moving a bit and couldn't be happier.

Adam, how many total pounds of beads do you have in there now?

Just added more beads, so about 4lbs, on the bottom I put them in a shallow cigar box bottom so the depth of the beads is right under 2 inches, it's about even top and bottom 2lbs and 2lbs.

I just sealed all the joints on my crappy end table humidor, so those sticks are in a coleman for now, but that will be about 4 or 5 pounds of beads as well as soon as it airs out.

[gettysburgfreak]

I was looking at purchasing the 18 bottle model. How do you like yours so far? Quality good?