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The awkward silence is killing me... LOL

Anyone??

I spoke of this in one of my post, temp and humidity are somewhat proportionately linked due to the temp required for water to vaporize, aka humidity.

You're giving me a freaking headache.

Yep,
The graph looks bassakwards.
Dave (A.K.A. Homebrew)

I'm horney now,,,,,





****!

Humidity test...

Place smokey treat between thumb and 4 fingers.

Apply preasure (Scream "get a job you withless POS")

If they are squishy...to high
If they crackle...to low
In between ..fire it up

I keep the humidity in my humidor at about 65% at all times regardless of temperature. The temperature fluctuates with the seasons from between 65 degrees and about 78 degrees.

I have had zero issues, so far, with the quality of my cigars or beetles.

^I read that wrong. I thought you said your beetles were healthy. LOL

Re: #5

donutboy2000 is exactly correct, I found that page just before coming here and it says pretty much what I did.

I guess you can't argue with thermodynamics. Well, maybe you can, but I tried once and it hurts!

Thanks to all for the input.

-JT

JT, your box looks fine, but your line has some problems with splotching.

Topped for jpotts.

-JT

Looks like my stocks lately.

None of that was measured, it was all calculated from an isoperm equation (not isotherm).

I took 70/70 as the "ideal" cigar storage environment, figured out what the partial pressure of water vapor was in that situation, found the mass of water per unit dry air, then used the isoperm equation to calculate the data points shown on the plot for various temperatures.

What this data (line) shows is the conditions that are identical to a 70/70 environment in terms of absolute moisture content. The line is a "best fit" curve just to help see the trend of the calculated data.

This plot only applies to hygrometers that do not autoatically compensate for temperature changes. The hygrometers that have built-in temperature compensation already figure this out and 70% RH is 70% RH regardless of temperature.

-JT

Way to much going into this J. Buy some 65% (HI)beads, keep them moist and monitor the temperature. No mold/beetles and cigars taste/feel good...well done. Just my 2 cents.

Ryan

JTokash:

My only argument against this plot is that it's calculated, and not measured.

It's been a while since I've taken things like Chemisty and Physics, and I'm a little new to fiddling with humidity sensors, and it's been a LONG tine since electronics...well...anyways, from the sensor data sheets that I found, it looks as if temperature is taken into account by the sensor, but there is an additional compensation factor that need to be calculated to get a final humidity reading.

Plus, from what I know, stale air causes a seperation of water vapor, as the more humid air sinks, and the dryer air rises. Which MIGHT explain why some people observe that with colder temps, there seems to be less humidity, because they pull their sticks from the top of the humidor, as opposed to the bottom.

Here's a link to a simple linear voltage sensor:

http://sccatalog.honeywell.com/pdbdownload/images/hih-4000.series.chart.1.pdf

Notice the sections on the left-hand section on page #1 titled "Voltage Output 2nd Order Curve Fit" and

That looks like a nice sensor, but is the accuracy good enough for your use? If you're using this to drive some fans, it sould be fine.

On the left side of the schematic, it looks like the one formula for Vout is specifically only for 25 degrees C, but the other Vout formula (the lower one) is for any temperature and will provide the temperature compensation.

I'm about to head off to get some sleep, but if you want to discuss this through email, I'm at: jct154 at psu dot edu.

-JT

Rrr?

i agree with slarty bartfast the answer is 42

The graph above represents the theoretical based upon maintaining the same amount of water in a fixed volume of air. This is not a practical application. The ability of air to hold the water molecules in suspension (ie. humidity) is directly effected by temperature. Warm air is more capable of holding moisture, while cooler air causes the air to condense out as rain or condensation. As the air cools, the molecules of water slow down, get closer together until they merge together, and settle out as rain.

A dry day in the Caribbean is usually 50% humidity, while a dry day in a Canadian winter will have 10% humidity. If the humidity level gets too high in a canadian winter, it snows. In the Carribean the air can have 99.5% humidity before it settles as rain.

Your equation assumes that the water constantly remains "in solution" in the air and temperature is the sole variable.

Eric

I don't see how you are taking the outside air temp. into consideration. Here is a real case study:

Last summer I lost my A/C for 2 days. The temp in the house increased and the humidity in my humidors also increased. Had to move most of my cigars to the basement until the A/C was fixed. While I would agree that my Aristocrat Humidors are not "Perfectly" airtight, they are pretty darn close to it.

c3s

Ok, this is for an "ideal" situation, in other words a box without cigars or a humidifier, the only thing inside it is air and a tiny bit of water vapor.

Ken, the reason your humidity went up when it got warm isn't because this graph or physics is wrong, it's because you have a practically sealed container with a source of humidity inside it. So as the temperature went up, your humidifier became more "active" and pumped out more moisture than it did when the A/C was running.

Lou, this all depends on if your $10 hygrometer is temperature compensated. At this point, it's say that if you're on the cool side of things, try to keep the humidity a bit higher than normal, but I wouldn't go too far above 70% so you don't promote mold growth. The basic idea is that as it gets warmer, you can drop the humidity a bit, and as it get cooler you can afford to raise the humidity a bit.

------------------------------------------------

Now then, the scientist in me is going to go buy a "Lock-n-Lock" container and perform a little experiment. These containers, if you've never seen them at the grocery store or your local jumbo-mart, have a gasket seal and four locking tabs (one on each side) and are nothing more than a really fancy Rubbermaid container.

Then, I'll take the container into my lab where I have an inert atmosphere glovebox with 99.9999% pure argon sealed air-tight inside it (less than 1 part per million of water) and it has constant HEPA filtration as well as active oxygen and water traps... yeah, it costs a hundred thousand dollars, it's fancy, LOL.

Here's a picture of what the glovebox looks like, but this is at another university (in China):

http://www.pcoss.org/manager/images/mbraun.jpg

This glovebox has two vacuum antechambers attached to it, so I'll take the Lock-n-Lock container, a micro-pipette of water (yes I know taking water into a drybox is a no-no, but a few drops is no problem for it), and a digital hygrometer and load them into the vacuum chamber, remove all the air, and refill it with the pure (dry) argon so we know it's at 0%RH. Then I'll add one drop of water so the total amount of moisture is fixed (as is the case for the theoretical curve shown above) and I'll seal up the box with the hygrometer inside it. The one drop of water should be enough to give the container some measurable RH value once it's sealed up. If that one drop of water doesn't make an appreciable RH register on the hygrometer, I'll add more, drop-wise, until it's looking good (around 50% or so) and no drops are visible so that it's all in the vapor phase. Then I'll take it out of the glovebox, keeping it perfectly sealed, and I'll use a thermostated water bath to vary the temperature up and down by 10 degrees (or more depending on how much time I can spare) and I'll record the RH inside the box at each temperature. This should replicate the theoretical "ideal" conditions as close as possible.

After this is done, I'll repeat this experiment, but this time I'll use a Humi-Gel humidifier inside the Lock-n-Lock box rather than a drop or so of water.

Hopefully I can do this over the weekend and get some results, but I have other work to do first... sigh. LOL

In the meantime, light up a good one guys.

-JT

Re #40

I tried a simple little experiment. Took my Lock-n-Lock container, tossed in a humipack and a digital hygrometer (not temperature compensating) that was recently salt tested (when this hygrometer reads 66%, it's actually 70%, so it reads too low by 4%).

I sealed it all up and ran my fiancee's hair dryer to blow some warm air across the sealed container evenly. It got up to 73 degrees and the hygrometer was reading 86%, so it was actually 90% RH.

So, with a humidifications source that pumps out more humidity as the temperature increases, that's the worst case since you actually want the RH to drop as the temperature increases to maintain the same moisture content.

OK, I'm off to watch a movie.

-JT

No, it's the other way around. If you crap on top of your humidor, your cigars will be fine. But if you fart within 30 feet the cigars will taste like poop, even if your humidor was closed.

I hope that clears things up. Man, I wasn't even thinking about foul odors. Temperature and humidity are hard enough to control... now odors, this is getting serious!

-JT

I had a cupido from the basement freezador that was running around 64% RH. Once fired up, it became so soft and moist I could barely keep it lit. It had been in there for @ a month. Is it pulling moisture from the air when lit up and warming, like glasses fog when coming inside on a cold day?

This horse dead or just sleeping? Either way, I can't seem to let it lie.

JTokash,
Have you seen the discussion in 5.0a here: http://www.cigargroup.com/faq/#5.0a ?

Not sure if that'll get yanked or not. If it does, google

' "variable humidity myth" Patton ',

and refer to FAQ 5.0a. If true, seems to indicate some incorrect assumptions that either cloud the waters or even contradict much of what's been discussed here.
-dave