Bead issues

OK as many of you know I've been having a ton of issues with my 70% beads. Well I have discovered part of the problem. The digital hygro I was using was at least 7% off(showing 82% in a salt test) and I had just calibrated this thing so it hit the trash can. However even at 7% off this still doesn't explain the wild fluctuations. So I have de-charged the beads to about 5 - 10% charged, I'm now using all 4 ounces in the humidor and I'm going to let that sit for a few days and see how it levels out. So far so good though, within 10 minutes of putting the new hygro and the beads in the humi it was sitting at 69%.

Thanks Kuzi, taking them out of the tubes and spreading them out in a bowl decharged them very quickly.

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Comments

dutyje

Any digital hygrometer you buy will advise against using the salt test for calibration because of potential damage to the circuitry. I wonder if you managed to screw it up somehow, or if you managed to mess up the salt test. I've screwed up the salt test in the past in a couple different ways (over-diluted salt solution, not enough air in the test bag, etc). Just throwing that out there.

madurofan

Really? I've never thought or heard of the Salt test damaging the circuity but it makes sense that it could. I think the issue here though was its a POS hygro. I'll stick with my Xikar, it seems to be on the money everytime. Also I do my salt tests in a piece of tupperware rather than a bag.

dutyje

Yeah, I've found the tupperware works much better than the bag for hygrometer calibration. I salt test mine as well and it seems to work extremely well. At least, it's revealing as-expected results when I use the humidity beads.

On an interesting side note, the issue I had with beads in a perfectly sealed tupperdor is the same as the issue I had with the water pillows in a perfectly sealed tupperdor. With the loose seal I described (set the lid on, don't seal it on) both the beads and the pillows work very well.

madurofan

Interesting ... Well I've switched from tupperware to a Cooler now and that seems to be maintaining the RH much better than the tupperware did. The cooler of course has the Oasis in it. I'm using the beads exclusively in my regular humidor, which is my "now smoking" humi.

dutyje:
the water pillows in a perfectly sealed tupperdor.

Man you're tough, my wife would've been pissed if I locked her in a perfectly sealed tupperdor.

dutyje

I used the one with the leftover lasagna

madurofan

dutyje:
I used the one with the leftover lasagna

LMAO

urbino

Glad to hear you're getting that issue straightened out, maddy. Maybe I should try decharging mine again.

madurofan

Like I said this is only as of last night. I'll let you know how it looks in a few days. Have you tried completely de-charging yours?

urbino

Not completely.

madurofan

Mine are like 95% de-charged so we'll see how this works