How reliable are electronic dry cabinets?

[goering]

I recently purchased a dry cabinet - the Akarui one from Cathay photo after digging up some threads here on this issue.

The Akarui one had no adverse comments here and it fitted my budget but some people have mentioned about calibration issues - that the reading might be off as much as 20% or more.

So I decided to verify if the cabinet is really working. As I didn't want to purchase a hygrometer just for this purpose, I bought some silica gel and placed it exposed in the cabinet. To my surprise, just the following morning, the gels turned pink although the RH of the cabinet indicates 40+%

Prior to purchasing the cabinet, I have followed Cathay's instructions to turn to "ON" until RH drops to 30% and then turning to "M" and let it stabilise at 40+ before putting in any items

Was wondering if my set is faulty or is this a calibration problem?

 

[Tetrode]

Those cheap analog hydrometers that come with the dry cabinets are highly inaccurate. They can be and usually are off by 20%-30%.

Get yourself a digital hydrometer from Sim Lim Tower for about $25. It'll give you a more accurate reading of the humidity in your dry box.

Don't worry about the results of your Silica gel test. They turned pink because of the latent humidity present in the box. You should remember 40% humidity means there is still moisture in the air.

 

[lutz]

Is your set's gasket (The rubber thing around the door..I dunno what you call it) magnetic? Like a refrigerator?

I have an Akarui dry cabinet also, bought from CP few years ago...the rubber thingy was not magnetic. The humidity couldn't come down, so CP changed the gasket to a magnetic one for me FOC.

Hope this helps

 

[goering]

Don't worry about the results of your Silica gel test. They turned pink because of the latent humidity present in the box. You should remember 40% humidity means there is still moisture in the air.

Thanks for your assurance about the silica gel test but I noticed that when I put the gel in the dry box (non electronic ones), the gel stays blue much longer and there should still be moisture in the air inside the dry box. The silica gel in my dry cabinet gets pink within hours.

Is your set's gasket (The rubber thing around the door..I dunno what you call it) magnetic? Like a refrigerator?

I have an Akarui dry cabinet also, bought from CP few years ago...the rubber thingy was not magnetic. The humidity couldn't come down, so CP changed the gasket to a magnetic one for me FOC

Mine is a non magnetic one. According to CP, the design has been changed to non magnetic so that it would not affect items that are magnetic eg tapes, diskettes, etc.

 

[then]

i bought a 'cheapo' brand (cannot remember now whether it is AmPro or DigiCab) sometime back. The unit and analog hydrometer seems to work until i decied one day to place my entire color film collection (with all the paper envelopes) into the cabinet, it shots up to 60+-% and never really recover from there.

Although I set the dehumidifier setting to the max but the indicator light is constantly lit (indicating that it is working hard at dehumidifing) for more than 2 week and still the reading stays around 60.

i had no idea which was spolit - the dehumifying unit or meter, so i placed 2 bottles of silica gel , the reading dropped to 50%. after sometime i finally gave up and turn off the dehumifying unit and use the cabinet as an air tight box with the silica gel. one round of microwaving the gel can last me about a month or so.

think my cabinet is still under warranty, but it is too inconvenient to find alternative storage to store all my gears and bring the box to the distributor. who knows how long they would take to check and repair the unit?

lesson? - for me, next time, always get a good brand. we get what we pay, i guess.

 

[tweakmax2]

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