Vino Temp Humidity Resolved

All,

I recently had some humidity problems in my Vino Temp 28ct and I just wanted to share my trials and tribulations as well as the solution that I came accross. I recently posted that I was having problems maintaining humidity consistence through out my humidor. My humi is set up with custom cedar trays up top and two shelves on the lower level. The humidor is rather packed with loose cigars and stogies still in boxes. For humidity I placed about a pound of 65% beads in a bowl on the bottom of the humidor. My NYC apartment is not air conditioned consistently as I do not leave it on when I am at work so the Vino is usually always on cooling the cigars. It is currently set at the lowest temperature possible. The problem I was having was that the cigars on the upper levels were not receiving the proper humidity and temperature was rather erratic, remaining at 70 degrees with about 50% to 47%rH. I tried everything including buying a cigar oasis and nothing seemed to work. Water began to pool at the bottom of the humidor which only led to more problems. I polled the board members and it looked like proper airflow was the best solution so here is what i did...

I went on ebay and got a flat computer cooling pad which has 3 fans on it, unfortunately these fans are usually always powered by USB so I also bought a USB to A/C power converter, the total cost of these two items was about 19 dollars. The computer pad is not really powerful, only about 3,000rpms.

There has been a lot of discussion about whether to plug or unplug the drain in the humi but here is what i did. I flipped the humi over and unscrewed the water collecting tray right below the drain, I also unscrewed the drainage tube and removed it completely from the humi. I then took a screw driver and created a larger hole where the drainage tube used to be so I could wire the USB power cable through the drain, this worked perfectly. I also took a small foam earplug that you can get at any drug store and plugged what remained of the hole in the humi. I placed the cooling pad flat up against the back wall in the humi and proped it up slightly from the ground using small left over cedar dividers. I placed the bowl filled with beads back on the floor of the humi and placed the cigar oasis on the shelf and turned it on. I took some pics of what the humi now ultimately looks like. The best part... Temperature and humidity are pretty much constant through out the entire vino temp (65 degrees, 63% rH) and no more puddles are accumulating on the floor.





If you have any questions and feel that you are running into the same problem I did please let me know. It looks like the solution here was simple, more airflow, but I think these computer cooling pads provide a better alternative to Oust fans and can be put in the humidor in a more space saving manner.

I hope this helps!

-Seth