modo22
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2009
- Messages
- 6,628
Ok, so this process started back in April! My wineador, Newair 28 bottle wine cooler, stopped working last fall (2013). I had owned it and had no issues since 2009. For some reason last fall the cpu stopped working and the fans would no longer turn and it would not cool. I made it through winter just fine and stumbled upon a scratch and dent special just before the heat started here in the Midwest. Picked up a Newair 281E for a great deal, the dent is unfortunately right on top of the digital display, but it works with no issues. I aired (while wiping down with hot water every now and then) the unit out for several days while my smokes sat in my old wineador and desktop humi. In my old unit I just used the wire racks and boxes to store my cigars, but this was the time to make the jump to drawers like a man deserves. I contacted Forrest and started to throw questions and options at him. There had been some issues with production time of late so I made sure that was not going to be an issue before I ordered. Ordered 3 drawers, two shelves…now I just had to wait.
In the meantime I wanted to construct something for some extra air circulation inside. I also wanted to get a 3rd hygrometer. I tried the new Xikar with no calibration needed, but it was so far off from my current two (one Walmart worthy and one standard round). So I then tried the Xikar with calibration, but it is still reading a whole 6% difference from my others. But running the new unit, as I have been running my other, at 60%-68% was fine by me.
While waiting for the drawers I was able to get the new unit to hold steady at 66%/68* while storing my cigars in some boxes on the wire boxes. Finally my new drawers came! As I picked up the box from the office the smell just ooooozed out of the box, cedar; yum! I quickly opened them up and began to wipe them down with some distilled water and got them in the new unit to acclimate them to the new climate. While that happened I stored my smokes in the old unit and was lucky with the weather, but really had to keep my entire apartment at a nice and cool temp with some heavy AC usage.
One drawer was chipped from shipping. I contacted Forrest; he shipped a new one with a prepaid shipping slip to send back the damaged one. It took a while, but it came in a week or two. The only other issue was the felt on some of the dividers was just peeling off, so I asked him to send new felt and had to remind him for a month or so. Finally got everything finished up with him and at this point am happy.
So now I have all my smokes in. I am surprised that I am still pretty full in there! I took two old DC fans off the old wine fridge, striped the two wires, and crimped them together. A lot of builds I have seen took the fans from their low voltage up to enough voltage to plug in to a standard outlet by using a USB cable and then plugging that into an old charger, but I didn’t like the multiple connections that could lead to multiple trouble shooting if something went down. So I took an old phone charger and just striped that down, essentially just skipping the USB part. I played with this a lot to find what worked for me; it was an overly painful step for me because I am OCD at times. After that I went to Home Depot and bought a light timer. I have the timer currently set to turn the fans on for 10 mins every hour. Then I took some old wine corks, cut them in half, and mounted the fans (pointing down) on them to lift them up off the bottom of the cooler. I did not plug the bottom hole as the cables running through there are blocking most of it. I have not had any condensation issues at this point.
As of today 10/5, I am having no problems with temp. It is consistent between 66-69. The Humidity is iffy sometimes. It ranges from 64-69, but the difference between the bottom and top of the cooler, depending on what hygro I use, can sometimes reach 72% on the bottom. I have two Tupperware dishes full of 65% beads. As of late I have had two or three cigars that I have found in the center two racks that have a little mold on them. But I have not found a huge amount. But for me two or three with mold is A LOT compared to what I have ever had in the past. I am not freaking out, but I have removed one of the Tupperware dishes at waiting to see if the % changes. Any advice on this is welcome. Over all I love it, I am very happy with my set up, but just hope to not have a humidity issue and find no mold issue, although I find that certain brands of CCs sometimes have this issue regardless.
Hope you enjoy the porn;
In the meantime I wanted to construct something for some extra air circulation inside. I also wanted to get a 3rd hygrometer. I tried the new Xikar with no calibration needed, but it was so far off from my current two (one Walmart worthy and one standard round). So I then tried the Xikar with calibration, but it is still reading a whole 6% difference from my others. But running the new unit, as I have been running my other, at 60%-68% was fine by me.
While waiting for the drawers I was able to get the new unit to hold steady at 66%/68* while storing my cigars in some boxes on the wire boxes. Finally my new drawers came! As I picked up the box from the office the smell just ooooozed out of the box, cedar; yum! I quickly opened them up and began to wipe them down with some distilled water and got them in the new unit to acclimate them to the new climate. While that happened I stored my smokes in the old unit and was lucky with the weather, but really had to keep my entire apartment at a nice and cool temp with some heavy AC usage.
One drawer was chipped from shipping. I contacted Forrest; he shipped a new one with a prepaid shipping slip to send back the damaged one. It took a while, but it came in a week or two. The only other issue was the felt on some of the dividers was just peeling off, so I asked him to send new felt and had to remind him for a month or so. Finally got everything finished up with him and at this point am happy.
So now I have all my smokes in. I am surprised that I am still pretty full in there! I took two old DC fans off the old wine fridge, striped the two wires, and crimped them together. A lot of builds I have seen took the fans from their low voltage up to enough voltage to plug in to a standard outlet by using a USB cable and then plugging that into an old charger, but I didn’t like the multiple connections that could lead to multiple trouble shooting if something went down. So I took an old phone charger and just striped that down, essentially just skipping the USB part. I played with this a lot to find what worked for me; it was an overly painful step for me because I am OCD at times. After that I went to Home Depot and bought a light timer. I have the timer currently set to turn the fans on for 10 mins every hour. Then I took some old wine corks, cut them in half, and mounted the fans (pointing down) on them to lift them up off the bottom of the cooler. I did not plug the bottom hole as the cables running through there are blocking most of it. I have not had any condensation issues at this point.
As of today 10/5, I am having no problems with temp. It is consistent between 66-69. The Humidity is iffy sometimes. It ranges from 64-69, but the difference between the bottom and top of the cooler, depending on what hygro I use, can sometimes reach 72% on the bottom. I have two Tupperware dishes full of 65% beads. As of late I have had two or three cigars that I have found in the center two racks that have a little mold on them. But I have not found a huge amount. But for me two or three with mold is A LOT compared to what I have ever had in the past. I am not freaking out, but I have removed one of the Tupperware dishes at waiting to see if the % changes. Any advice on this is welcome. Over all I love it, I am very happy with my set up, but just hope to not have a humidity issue and find no mold issue, although I find that certain brands of CCs sometimes have this issue regardless.
Hope you enjoy the porn;
