I like deconstruction (or destruction) by proxy, it's nearly as satisfying as the real thing. I need fizzes and pops occasionally as Ashens won't set tat on fire anymore.
A bit too late for me, my bros and sis’s will always remind me how I took apart their favourite toys. This is over 40years ago now but they still manage to get into the conversation.😅
The orange indicating beads use methyl violet (orange to green) instead of cobalt chloride (deep blue to light purple). Methyl violet is much less toxic, but you'll still see warnings against using orange-indicating silica beads in direct contact with food, mostly because it hasn't been tested and approved as "food-safe".
@@Ammoniummetavanadate then you're either using too much heat and "burning" them, or not fully recharging them :P Brown-ish is usually their color when they are transitioning from bright translucent orange to dark green.
@@NiyaKouya Measured 116C max, with cobalt chloride stuff I usually run 120C I measure mass change to find the end point, they are definitely fully dry.
Clive: next time you drop grunular or smll leafy things like seeds, herbs, pepper, tea, that you still want to use, you can get a fine-woven sock and poke it in the end of the vacuum cleaner hose, and then bind the sides of the sock to the outside of the hose. So long as you have a long enough sock to hold all you dropped, this can save you hours! Especially with bouncy things like lentils and mustard seeds. I tore a pack of mustard seeds trying to open it, once...
I used to buy the nontoxic silicagel with colour change as soon as the silica gel is saturated. I hadn't yet thought about the fact that you can determine saturation by weight! It is worth paying attention to the small, inconspicuous subordinate clauses in the video. :) Thank you much!
I use to have a piece of gear that used desiccant by the pound. I just stuck the hydrated (spent) desiccant in a bowl, and then in the microwave, to dive off the water. Worked just fine. They have setups that have two alternating paths, where one is in use, drying the passed thru gas (usually air), while the other side was being heated up, to dry out the desiccant. Also includes the associated diverter valves, and electronics controlling them. Way to fancy for me. Microwave is standing idle most of the time, anyways. Don't pop your popcorn and dry out your desiccant at the same time.
I thought I was entirely immune to ASMR, but the almost metallic rattling of the beads falling in the pan and Clive raking through them with his fingers was extremely satisfying.
@@GothBoyUK Stuff like beads or beans being poured appeals to me, but I absolutely cringe at the scraping of metal. A popular cooking show uses knives being sharpened as a transition sound effect and it drives me mad.
@@tncorgi92 Usually I'm really sensible to metal scraping on stuff, like knives or forks on china for example. Which is why I was so surprised that this rattling was so appealing to me. Not to the level of getting goosebumps but along the lines of: "Huh, that's a nice kind of white noise."
that is a real ceramic heater! that is how the early PTC heaters were made, a ceramic body with 4 PTC elements sandwiched between. got an old one i use, been meaning to tear it apart in a video. Pelonis Disc Furnace, or micro furnace. they are fascinating vintage tech.
We used to use silica crystals for camera equipment. To dry them out we just placed them on a cookie sheet in the oven at low heat for 20 or 30 minutes. Rarely ever had to buy new ones.
Decided to order one in after seeing it on the live stream and they appear to work quite well , I placed them in individual 3D printer filament bags along with a cheaper round humidity displays and they are both reading 10% now so ill probably use them to preserve my filament rolls. Thanks for the heads up on this 🙂 , Wish they sold the carts separate from the main unit.
This is a clone of the Eva-Dry E365. I forgot about it for a few days and it stopped working. This past week, I opened it up and I had to replace the thermistor diode and capacitor that ruptured due to the heat build-up. Nice coincidence.
There's probably something inherently wrong with me, but i found the part where you emptied the silica gel beads into the tray to be incredibly satisfying! 😂
I’ve got one of these units but in blue and 120v from a different brand (same exact housings, though), and I haven’t had any issues with the electronics. My guess as to the pricing would be that multiple companies have been rebranding the same product for years now, and some of them are dropping this one in favor of either a newer model or a more profitable type of product to slap their brand on.
Cobalt chloride was the baby blue to baby pink, it isn't used any more I believe, unsure about the ptc element, however you could have powered it directly and checked for any signs of heat coming from it, with a thermal camera it might even tell you how efficiently it was operating No schematic this time?
Orange-brown when dry and green when wet means it's based on copper 2 chloride: anhydrous CuCl2 is light brown while hydrate is green/dark green/blue depending on water content
It's funny when you realize that people will use this thing in the same room where they "recharge" it. Essentially just blowing the humidity back into the room they want to get it out of...
I use Eva-dry E-333 for my 3d printer enclosure. When it goes purple I remove it plug in for some time and then back in 3d printer it goes... Really helps keep moisture levels down
The colour change from cobalt chloride added to silica gel when changed from anhydrous to hydrous depends on its concentration and is generally said as SOME shade of blue to purple/pink. As an aside: In 1966, the addition of cobalt compounds to stabilize beer foam in Canada led to a peculiar form of toxin-induced cardiomyopathy, which came to be known as beer drinkers' cardiomyopathy. 🍺
In the modern, hermetically-sealed, centrally-heated home, introducing moisture from the desiccant is probably a good thing! Running mine in the kitchen.
@@aaakkk112 You have more serious problems to worry about if you're extracting 20-40l/day - my parents had a house with similar problems. I'd suggest you look into fitting a Positive Input Ventilation (PIV) system, then be ready for every door in the house to shrink as it all dries out!
@@arturjogi2667 Dude, notice he said in the winter. Some of us lives where there is very cold and because of that very dry air in the winter. And 40 liters is nothing. I run a massive humidifier so I can keep my humidity inside at 50-55% even in the coldest of winters. And it uses so much RO water on really cold days it is crazy. But I also make sure to ventilate properly with CO2 meters, so I probably bring in more fresh air than most when it is that cold. But it is so worth it to have a nice pleasant fresh and not dry air in my home. I have also found that the cost to run it is more than made up, from that I can keep the temp lower inside. Because more humid air feels much warmer. Before I started doing that I always kept the inside temp several degrees higher. Meaning you actually save money from making sure the air is not to dry inside in the winter.
@@cajampa 40 liters per day, that's enough to fully saturate 2312 cubic meters of air at 20 degrees, like, six large houses. You must be keeping all your windows open or storing tons of raw macaroni in your living room or something.
@@arturjogi2667 Not when it is colder than -20C outside and here it sometimes even go to -30. And you keep the ventilation good enough for the CO2 to be lower than 700 for a couple of people. You can make up what kind of BS you want, I am talking from years of experience. If you do not let in any fresh air at all yes of course it would need a lot less. But you do not seem to understand, I am not talking about a hermetically sealed house with garbage inside air quality.
This must be really new - seems available only in the UK at the moment. The pipe attachment is for drying shoes! Would like to pick up one of these to dry out my moist cars during the rainy season!
We had a Taylor brand combination temperature, barometer and humidity instrument. The humidity detector was a piece of heavy cardboard coated with cobalt chloride. I remember the blue/pink color change.
Wouldn't you have to put the "drying" unit outside (with it's 240VAC power) to dry the silica so you don't reintroduce the humidity back into your house? Seems squint. I do like the holey PTC unit...makes sense to do it that way on both an efficiency level and using less materials.
I use a set of these to dry out my linen closet. Its adjacent to my bathroom and gets really humid when I shower. I have the stand in my server room where the humidity is 20%
@@farmersteve129EXACTLY my first thought. Better off with this dedicated unit than using the air fryer and relying on it's inbuilt filters to filter out any dust etc 🙏🏻
I have a couple of those rechargeable dehumidifiers you can just plug in to an outlet overnight and a heating element dries them out. Use them to keep my 3d printer filament storage box dry. They've got those same orange/green beads in them.
I haven’t ever had to buy desiccant packets because I just pour some silica kitty litter into a length of pantyhose, or an empty bag intended for loose tea.
@kailoveskitties Well I feel like a right silly person buying bags of silica gel when I could have just been buying substantially cheaper kitty litter instead! Good to know
That interesting PTC module is definitely the most interesting piece of this thing. I wonder if that style is something fairly new that we'll start seeing in other stuff that needs low-ish power air heating. 🤔
I had a ceramic space heater that one of my professors gave me around 1988 because it was broken. I fixed it, and was still using it until a year or so ago when it started making a horrible odor. It had a ceramic element about 4 inches in diameter which was full of holes. The air flowed through it too.
Depends on the cost of manufacturing. At some point you would need quite a bit of airflow to keep it somewhat cool. I am guessing that you could still chape it in a way where you only need the PTC and nothing more. Makes it cheaper if you don't need the extra fins. I am more curious on how they manufactured the element itself. I thought PTC elements could only be produced in solid blocks. Didn't know you had such freedom with its shape.
I wonder if they will come up with one for HotAir reflow tools. Might not be able to handle the heat as well. The nice thing about using a PTC is that you can program the desired temperature into it and it self regulates, handles the PID and safety a lot. Also nice that there was an isolating supply to provide a bit of protection is some water/snow or mud were to fall into the hot air outlet.
Ive used those reusable silica gels many times for drying my 3d printer filament, the beads only really lasted 5 cycles or so before they dont do a very good job anymore, personally Ive switched to just buying a load of the cheap catlitter, the benotite clay it whatever its called, its less effective but it works and is 20x cheaper
Nice little unit, that might be good for a car if you have moisture issues in the winter (As opposed to the bags of calcium chloride that you can get that yout hrow away afterwards)
You can actually reuse calcium chloride if you bake it in the oven at (IRC) 250C, then it turns back into a solid. Even heating it to (say) 150C dries it wayyyy out, but leaves it partially a liquid. Even then the liquid is still works as a dehumidifier.
Thermal fuse (carefully plastic-insulated for delay!). Nevertheless a very interesting bit of kit, and I too have never seen a PTC element quite like that. Also, it would be VERY useful for certain applications, however so far a search through the "usual suppliers" has drawn a blank. Compact yet safe heaters based on this would be useful for keeping our flock of Chooks cosier in winter nights (with much reduced fire risk).
The best Silica gel uses Cobalt Chloride .... when damp it is a pale pink ... then a few minutes in an ELECTRIC oven turns it into a very deep blue ( a normal jam jar keeps it dry for months ! ) ..... it is important not to dry in a gas oven as burning gas makes a LOT of water vapour , ( cold wall Victorian houses take note , condensation etc ) ........ DAVE™🛑
Before the breakdown, I thought the vertical section was just a repurposed washer agitator housing. Guess it was only inspired by the grandeur that is the inside of a modern laundry unit.
If you want to see more honeycomb PTCs, look at some old "Pelonis Disc Furnaces". I quite like the old Amerian made ones, but I don't much like that the initial power is much higher, with all four discs installed the initial power of a "1500 watt" heater can be around 3000 watts (way too much for 120V power systems, although it goes down quickly). I took two discs out of each of mine, I won't use any 1500 watt heaters, I'd rather use 250 watt heaters spread throughout my box, I've seen way too many electrical fires caused by having such high continuous loads on outlets. Also, I like the design of these dehumidifiers you showed here, but they don't appear to be available in the U.S.A., bummer.
Assuming the colorless silica gel beads are far more cheaper than indicating version, it's a shady thing that they put a thin layer of indicating version and filled rest with colorless version.
Not bad at all mechanically, apart from the artist / stylist's external wavy rib fetish - with a hole grid between them no less ...oh well - it won't affect function. No idea how long the PTC heater will last, I have not come across that style. A bit concerned about the ceramic "block with holes" part - likely some high stresses due to uneven thermal expansion as it heats up, depending on how the heater is arranged inside / on the ceramic. Could cause cracking of the heater element unless the ceramic is an improved type somehow, which can tolerate differential expansion better. The older style ceramic pad and metal fin grid type are very robust. Cheers!
Yeah if you use a big box but i use bags. Im working on a silicadryer on this hot air principle but just loose beads in and then use small spool size silicaholders.
@@bertkooijmans4769 bags or a static bed only got me down to 12-15% RH on my 40L storage box. I made a very very similar fan blown system that gets me down to 4%
One thing I've always never got about those things are... wouldn't you want to heat it up outside to drive the water out? So yknow...it doesn't go back into your house? It just seems kind of self defeating to catch damp.. and then release it again in your house. At least the salt ones actually catch isn store it and you can't drive the moisture off.... plus they're great to spray weeds with if you dilute the dehumidifier salt kills them really good
There's a flaw in the design, Big Clive! 🤔 ... The silica gel absorbs moisture from the air, then the heater puts it all back into the air again, so you're back to square one! .... As Homer would say, "Doh!" 🤣
Lol after watching this I was googling trying to find out about larger scale versions of these and I stumbled upon a video showing the inside of one from 10 years ago and who was it from but... bigclive.
I lucked out…a friend had a huge dehumidifier in storage, and when he was in my studio (l made his Halloween costume), he decided to loan it to me! It’s absorbed, like, 12 gallons, in under an month!
OK big man, im gonna need to know how exactly you managed to trim that screwdriver down without damaging fhe shaft!!! Exactly the type i have laying around unused but could ABSOLUTELY be used all the time for those annoying jobs where you need to have longer insertion length. From a fellow tinkerer and person who likes taking things apart (a little too much 😂). Would really be helpful as I need something like this to do works on my wheelchair 🙏🏻☺️😁
Those are intended for electricians and thy shall not tamper with the insulation!Just buy a normal one, those are cheaper and more choice in size and type
@@TeddieBean I have done the same as Clive did using a utility knife. The red outer sleeve is relatively soft, almost rubbery plastic while the metal shaft will normally not be damaged by the utility knife blade. Hope that helps.
You mentioned weighing it, how much moisture did it soak up? This might be useful for an old refrigerator (converted into a meat drier) that I now store 3d printer filament and some electronic components in. So long as I covered the air I let holes and fan outlet hole (for drying meat) it would be a pretty airtight space, so I could see this working. Reckon it'd work in semi-enclosed spaces too? Or does it only hold like 200ml max?
They sell super overpriced ones at Canadian tire for rifle safes, it's literally a big resistor and and LED connected to a timer to dry them. I hold on to all the silica gel packs, i just put them in the toaster on the lowest setting and watch it for 30 min
Hi Is there a P.O. Box to send my misbehaving belkin power bank to Big Clive for a dissection.......would be interested in what it was, there are no other markings and why it failed.......
Hey Clive, I'd love to know what you think of activated alumina used instead of silica gel (video?) . I only heard of the stuff fairly recently and it seems to be better in a lot of ways which surprises me why silica gel seems to be used far more often.
Out of stock. What a shame. I would love to have this kind of system for my electric car with that little bit to small of a battery. I don't want to use the heating because I am absolutely comfortable at 10°C but I inevitably have to turn up the heating because the stinkin windows fog up. It is not like I don't reach my destination because of the extra energy needed, but sometimes the moisture frosts up the window FROM THE INSIDE! That is a huge pain These things as an array of 5 or so units sitting some were, run by cheap off period electricity and ready to be taken on an trip on demand, that would be nice.
OK, let's take a look at this. When you heat up the dehumidifier, it drives the moisture out of it. Where does that moisture go? Out into the room. So do you now place the dehumidifier back into the room to reabsorb the moisture?
If I wanted to dehumidify a whole room, I would use a more powerful refrigerant dehumidifier. If I wanted to dehumidify a small box or cupboard, I would use one of these and then recharge it in a room that wasn't too humid to begin with.
Does make me wonder though, unless you set the thing outside (or a room with a vent sucking air outdoors), on drying out the silica, it would just re-moisten the air indoors, which would make it somewhat defeat its' own purpose....... :\
I’ve got a few, and that’s exactly how I use it. Absorbs humidity from a sealed bin of 3D printer filament, a linen closet, parts of the basement, then set up the base to dry it on the patio, in the garage, or in the bathroom with the exhaust fan on.
Hey clive would you mind measuring what temperature this blows? Im making a silica dryer for loose beads for 3d printing filament. But im not sure what temperature to go for. Also thermal fuse is going to be included thanks to your videos where you took one apart.
clive, ive got tons of little silica "dont eat" humidity absorbing packets. what would be a good and safe temperature to dry them and recharge them again?
IIRC the color-changing beads I have came with instructions to bake them at ~110-120°C for 1-2 hours. But the higher you go with the temp, the more likely it is that some of the beads will "pop" because the water evaporates too fast and shatters them. So lower temps over a longer time is "safer". The popping issue is also the reason why many manufacturers tell you to not dry them in the microwave, because that causes the water to turn into steam way too fast, shattering even more beads.
Could you by any chance do an experiment on how long it takes that thing to dry the silica gel? I am looking for a new method that's a bit more energy efficient compared to just putting it in the oven :)
I love how Clive cured my addiction of taking things apart by doing it for me..
I like deconstruction (or destruction) by proxy, it's nearly as satisfying as the real thing. I need fizzes and pops occasionally as Ashens won't set tat on fire anymore.
It certainly leaves fewer small screws in my carpet and saves on sticking plasters too.
A bit too late for me, my bros and sis’s will always remind me how I took apart their favourite toys. This is over 40years ago now but they still manage to get into the conversation.😅
@@timstreeter9795 I would wear it as a badge of honor.
Same here @@timstreeter9795
The orange indicating beads use methyl violet (orange to green) instead of cobalt chloride (deep blue to light purple). Methyl violet is much less toxic, but you'll still see warnings against using orange-indicating silica beads in direct contact with food, mostly because it hasn't been tested and approved as "food-safe".
thank you.
Great piece of knowledge. Thank you, Matt.
It always turns brown when I recharge it, lol.
@@Ammoniummetavanadate then you're either using too much heat and "burning" them, or not fully recharging them :P Brown-ish is usually their color when they are transitioning from bright translucent orange to dark green.
@@NiyaKouya Measured 116C max, with cobalt chloride stuff I usually run 120C
I measure mass change to find the end point, they are definitely fully dry.
TH-cam had me review this video. I gave it 5 stars and checked the tickmarks for informative, entertaining, and life-changing.
"It's kind of making enthusiastic clicking noises but not doing much." Me too dehumidifier, me too.
Clive: next time you drop grunular or smll leafy things like seeds, herbs, pepper, tea, that you still want to use, you can get a fine-woven sock and poke it in the end of the vacuum cleaner hose, and then bind the sides of the sock to the outside of the hose. So long as you have a long enough sock to hold all you dropped, this can save you hours! Especially with bouncy things like lentils and mustard seeds. I tore a pack of mustard seeds trying to open it, once...
"I shall use brute force and ignorance ... it worked!"
Too many times I have had a different result to that approach 😂
I want that on a t-shirt now. 😂
It was super effective... this once.
I used to buy the nontoxic silicagel with colour change as soon as the silica gel is saturated.
I hadn't yet thought about the fact that you can determine saturation by weight!
It is worth paying attention to the small, inconspicuous subordinate clauses in the video. :) Thank you much!
I use to have a piece of gear that used desiccant by the pound. I just stuck the hydrated (spent) desiccant in a bowl, and then in the microwave, to dive off the water. Worked just fine.
They have setups that have two alternating paths, where one is in use, drying the passed thru gas (usually air), while the other side was being heated up, to dry out the desiccant. Also includes the associated diverter valves, and electronics controlling them. Way to fancy for me. Microwave is standing idle most of the time, anyways. Don't pop your popcorn and dry out your desiccant at the same time.
I thought I was entirely immune to ASMR, but the almost metallic rattling of the beads falling in the pan and Clive raking through them with his fingers was extremely satisfying.
I absolutely hated it. I'll never fail to be amazed at how different humans react to the same thing in completely different ways. 😂
@@GothBoyUK Stuff like beads or beans being poured appeals to me, but I absolutely cringe at the scraping of metal. A popular cooking show uses knives being sharpened as a transition sound effect and it drives me mad.
the whole concept of ASMR was interesting at first, but the level it has reached is just completely cringeworthy now.
@@tncorgi92 Usually I'm really sensible to metal scraping on stuff, like knives or forks on china for example. Which is why I was so surprised that this rattling was so appealing to me. Not to the level of getting goosebumps but along the lines of: "Huh, that's a nice kind of white noise."
I could hear a bunch of synthetic tones at that point, as the audio compression algorithm ran out of bits and just threw in some frequencies.
that is a real ceramic heater! that is how the early PTC heaters were made, a ceramic body with 4 PTC elements sandwiched between. got an old one i use, been meaning to tear it apart in a video. Pelonis Disc Furnace, or micro furnace. they are fascinating vintage tech.
We used to use silica crystals for camera equipment. To dry them out we just placed them on a cookie sheet in the oven at low heat for 20 or 30 minutes. Rarely ever had to buy new ones.
Used to work in a sportswear shop. Kept as many bentonite clay packs as i could! Very good to keep your electronics and food dry.
You had me laughing again Clive...thanks for taking us along on your quests!
It's steaming up with excitement, should be included in the description.
Decided to order one in after seeing it on the live stream and they appear to work quite well , I placed them in individual 3D printer filament bags along with a cheaper round humidity displays and they are both reading 10% now so ill probably use them to preserve my filament rolls. Thanks for the heads up on this 🙂 , Wish they sold the carts separate from the main unit.
This is a clone of the Eva-Dry E365. I forgot about it for a few days and it stopped working. This past week, I opened it up and I had to replace the thermistor diode and capacitor that ruptured due to the heat build-up. Nice coincidence.
Eva-Dry appears to have stopped making this a year or so ago. Too bad. I have about 8 of the cylinders and three base stations.
There's probably something inherently wrong with me, but i found the part where you emptied the silica gel beads into the tray to be incredibly satisfying! 😂
It appears that a few people liked that and others hated it.
@@bigclivedotcom Well in my humble opinion, the ones that hated it..are wrong! 🤣
Cobalt chloride is a pink/blue color. The orange stuff is the new non-toxic indicator.
I’ve got one of these units but in blue and 120v from a different brand (same exact housings, though), and I haven’t had any issues with the electronics.
My guess as to the pricing would be that multiple companies have been rebranding the same product for years now, and some of them are dropping this one in favor of either a newer model or a more profitable type of product to slap their brand on.
Cobalt chloride was the baby blue to baby pink, it isn't used any more I believe, unsure about the ptc element, however you could have powered it directly and checked for any signs of heat coming from it, with a thermal camera it might even tell you how efficiently it was operating
No schematic this time?
Really nice and relaxing video to watch before I sleep. 😁👍💯
You got a great price on it. They run sixty plus dollars here in the US. 👍
@@IntegerOfDoom I thought you used snow mexican pesos. 🤣🤣🤣
silica gel fascinates me. the fact that is made from the same stuff as opals. yet is utterly different to them.
Orange-brown when dry and green when wet means it's based on copper 2 chloride: anhydrous CuCl2 is light brown while hydrate is green/dark green/blue depending on water content
So ..... Another well 'worth-it' product !
It's funny when you realize that people will use this thing in the same room where they "recharge" it. Essentially just blowing the humidity back into the room they want to get it out of...
Thought the same
It's for enclosures.
@@bigclivedotcom
Clive where can I buy a 240 to 120 step down transformer 3000 watt? I'm in italy
@@glidercoachassume by the fact that you are commenting that you have the internet?
@@dhewitt2514 Maybe you meant to say he has "internet access", not "the internet"...
I use Eva-dry E-333 for my 3d printer enclosure. When it goes purple I remove it plug in for some time and then back in 3d printer it goes... Really helps keep moisture levels down
The colour change from cobalt chloride added to silica gel when changed from anhydrous to hydrous depends on its concentration and is generally said as SOME shade of blue to purple/pink. As an aside: In 1966, the addition of cobalt compounds to stabilize beer foam in Canada led to a peculiar form of toxin-induced cardiomyopathy, which came to be known as beer drinkers' cardiomyopathy. 🍺
I bought a pack of those precision screwdrivers with the bit and its not bad. I got a pack of 4 of them for $8 and for that price i can't complain
In the modern, hermetically-sealed, centrally-heated home, introducing moisture from the desiccant is probably a good thing! Running mine in the kitchen.
Think about it. 40 liters of water every day? That's going somewhere, and it's not the air in your house. You probably have a huge problem somewhere.
@@aaakkk112 You have more serious problems to worry about if you're extracting 20-40l/day - my parents had a house with similar problems. I'd suggest you look into fitting a Positive Input Ventilation (PIV) system, then be ready for every door in the house to shrink as it all dries out!
@@arturjogi2667 Dude, notice he said in the winter. Some of us lives where there is very cold and because of that very dry air in the winter. And 40 liters is nothing. I run a massive humidifier so I can keep my humidity inside at 50-55% even in the coldest of winters. And it uses so much RO water on really cold days it is crazy. But I also make sure to ventilate properly with CO2 meters, so I probably bring in more fresh air than most when it is that cold. But it is so worth it to have a nice pleasant fresh and not dry air in my home. I have also found that the cost to run it is more than made up, from that I can keep the temp lower inside. Because more humid air feels much warmer. Before I started doing that I always kept the inside temp several degrees higher. Meaning you actually save money from making sure the air is not to dry inside in the winter.
@@cajampa 40 liters per day, that's enough to fully saturate 2312 cubic meters of air at 20 degrees, like, six large houses. You must be keeping all your windows open or storing tons of raw macaroni in your living room or something.
@@arturjogi2667 Not when it is colder than -20C outside and here it sometimes even go to -30. And you keep the ventilation good enough for the CO2 to be lower than 700 for a couple of people. You can make up what kind of BS you want, I am talking from years of experience.
If you do not let in any fresh air at all yes of course it would need a lot less. But you do not seem to understand, I am not talking about a hermetically sealed house with garbage inside air quality.
Is the PTC heater mains powered, or does it run off the 12V? I bought one - I love this sort of thing :)
It's mains powered. The little PSU is just for the fan.
This must be really new - seems available only in the UK at the moment. The pipe attachment is for drying shoes! Would like to pick up one of these to dry out my moist cars during the rainy season!
We had a Taylor brand combination temperature, barometer and humidity instrument. The humidity detector was a piece of heavy cardboard coated with cobalt chloride. I remember the blue/pink color change.
Wouldn't you have to put the "drying" unit outside (with it's 240VAC power) to dry the silica so you don't reintroduce the humidity back into your house? Seems squint.
I do like the holey PTC unit...makes sense to do it that way on both an efficiency level and using less materials.
It's really just for dehumidifying small enclosed areas. When recharged the small amount of water does end in the house.
I might get one of these for recycling my 3d printer filament silica gel & maybe print something to hold the sachets...
Yeah, like when people make swamp coolers with ice in them to cool their house. And freeze the water inside the same house...
I use a set of these to dry out my linen closet. Its adjacent to my bathroom and gets really humid when I shower.
I have the stand in my server room where the humidity is 20%
@@farmersteve129EXACTLY my first thought. Better off with this dedicated unit than using the air fryer and relying on it's inbuilt filters to filter out any dust etc 🙏🏻
The design of PTC is called Honeycomb PTC element.
I have a couple of those rechargeable dehumidifiers you can just plug in to an outlet overnight and a heating element dries them out. Use them to keep my 3d printer filament storage box dry. They've got those same orange/green beads in them.
That looks like it was a washing machine agitator in a previous life.
I used to recharge the silica gel by heating it with hair dryer.
oh thats where the forbidden snacks come from
Looks like fancy kitty litter, which is basically silica gel, destined to be used once, then tossed into the skip and then the dump.
I haven’t ever had to buy desiccant packets because I just pour some silica kitty litter into a length of pantyhose, or an empty bag intended for loose tea.
@kailoveskitties Well I feel like a right silly person buying bags of silica gel when I could have just been buying substantially cheaper kitty litter instead! Good to know
7:21 We're ALL waiting for something unforeseeable to happen! 😂 So you're some kind of "Master of Suspense". 🤭🤣
This is a very efficient and neat device. I like it. Also kind of neat to have the shoe adapter. I wonder what other adapters I could print for it.
That interesting PTC module is definitely the most interesting piece of this thing. I wonder if that style is something fairly new that we'll start seeing in other stuff that needs low-ish power air heating. 🤔
It could be interesting on a larger scale.
I had a ceramic space heater that one of my professors gave me around 1988 because it was broken. I fixed it, and was still using it until a year or so ago when it started making a horrible odor. It had a ceramic element about 4 inches in diameter which was full of holes. The air flowed through it too.
Depends on the cost of manufacturing. At some point you would need quite a bit of airflow to keep it somewhat cool. I am guessing that you could still chape it in a way where you only need the PTC and nothing more. Makes it cheaper if you don't need the extra fins. I am more curious on how they manufactured the element itself. I thought PTC elements could only be produced in solid blocks. Didn't know you had such freedom with its shape.
@@BakedPillow Same! I am super curious about how they manufacture something like that.
I wonder if they will come up with one for HotAir reflow tools. Might not be able to handle the heat as well.
The nice thing about using a PTC is that you can program the desired temperature into it and it self regulates, handles the PID and safety a lot.
Also nice that there was an isolating supply to provide a bit of protection is some water/snow or mud were to fall into the hot air outlet.
Ive used those reusable silica gels many times for drying my 3d printer filament, the beads only really lasted 5 cycles or so before they dont do a very good job anymore, personally Ive switched to just buying a load of the cheap catlitter, the benotite clay it whatever its called, its less effective but it works and is 20x cheaper
Nice little unit, that might be good for a car if you have moisture issues in the winter (As opposed to the bags of calcium chloride that you can get that yout hrow away afterwards)
Therefore you have Air-conditioning in your car.
You can actually reuse calcium chloride if you bake it in the oven at (IRC) 250C, then it turns back into a solid. Even heating it to (say) 150C dries it wayyyy out, but leaves it partially a liquid. Even then the liquid is still works as a dehumidifier.
@@Simbson So you keep your car running all night to dry it out?
Thermal fuse (carefully plastic-insulated for delay!). Nevertheless a very interesting bit of kit, and I too have never seen a PTC element quite like that. Also, it would be VERY useful for certain applications, however so far a search through the "usual suppliers" has drawn a blank. Compact yet safe heaters based on this would be useful for keeping our flock of Chooks cosier in winter nights (with much reduced fire risk).
The best Silica gel uses Cobalt Chloride .... when damp it is a pale pink ... then a few minutes in an ELECTRIC oven turns it into a very deep blue ( a normal jam jar keeps it dry for months ! ) ..... it is important not to dry in a gas oven as burning gas makes a LOT of water vapour , ( cold wall Victorian houses take note , condensation etc ) ........ DAVE™🛑
Ive had a couple of desk fans by the same company, not a bad group of lads
Before the breakdown, I thought the vertical section was just a repurposed washer agitator housing. Guess it was only inspired by the grandeur that is the inside of a modern laundry unit.
Hold the same thought at first.
Quite interested in these for the liners of my ski boots
Actually not a horrible product, that's rare
This looks like the beginning of an IKEA DIY washing machine kit. 😂
This is the sort of device that Local Youth would use to consume very naughty substances
Clive quotes need a book of their own.
3:55 "I shall use brute force and ignorance -- ah, it worked."
"I shall use brute force and ignorance - it worked." To this I say, c'est la vie.
If you want to see more honeycomb PTCs, look at some old "Pelonis Disc Furnaces". I quite like the old Amerian made ones, but I don't much like that the initial power is much higher, with all four discs installed the initial power of a "1500 watt" heater can be around 3000 watts (way too much for 120V power systems, although it goes down quickly). I took two discs out of each of mine, I won't use any 1500 watt heaters, I'd rather use 250 watt heaters spread throughout my box, I've seen way too many electrical fires caused by having such high continuous loads on outlets.
Also, I like the design of these dehumidifiers you showed here, but they don't appear to be available in the U.S.A., bummer.
Seems like a generous portion of silica beads
Assuming the colorless silica gel beads are far more cheaper than indicating version, it's a shady thing that they put a thin layer of indicating version and filled rest with colorless version.
Not bad at all mechanically, apart from the artist / stylist's external wavy rib fetish - with a hole grid between them no less ...oh well - it won't affect function. No idea how long the PTC heater will last, I have not come across that style. A bit concerned about the ceramic "block with holes" part - likely some high stresses due to uneven thermal expansion as it heats up, depending on how the heater is arranged inside / on the ceramic. Could cause cracking of the heater element unless the ceramic is an improved type somehow, which can tolerate differential expansion better. The older style ceramic pad and metal fin grid type are very robust. Cheers!
Could genuinely be useful for a 3D printer enclosure or dry storage box.
Yeah if you use a big box but i use bags.
Im working on a silicadryer on this hot air principle but just loose beads in and then use small spool size silicaholders.
@@bertkooijmans4769 bags or a static bed only got me down to 12-15% RH on my 40L storage box. I made a very very similar fan blown system that gets me down to 4%
That's what I got them for. One box with 9 1kg rolls is down to 10%.
Thanks :)
Is that tray from the 'Explosion Containment Pie Dish' set?
It's from the lithium cell containment set.
One thing I've always never got about those things are... wouldn't you want to heat it up outside to drive the water out? So yknow...it doesn't go back into your house? It just seems kind of self defeating to catch damp.. and then release it again in your house. At least the salt ones actually catch isn store it and you can't drive the moisture off.... plus they're great to spray weeds with if you dilute the dehumidifier salt kills them really good
These units are for small enclosed spaces.
Kinda looks like Top Loader Washing Machine Agitator.
It does! We don't really have the top loaders here in the UK though.
Makes me wonder on how efficient this thing really is on dehumidifying an actual room.
It's only intended for small spaces like cabinets.
There's a flaw in the design, Big Clive! 🤔 ... The silica gel absorbs moisture from the air, then the heater puts it all back into the air again, so you're back to square one! .... As Homer would say, "Doh!" 🤣
It's for keeping enclosures dry.
An entire switching power supply juts for a tiny fan? A capacitive dropper would do.
The Circumsized Screwdriver.
Lol after watching this I was googling trying to find out about larger scale versions of these and I stumbled upon a video showing the inside of one from 10 years ago and who was it from but... bigclive.
I lucked out…a friend had a huge dehumidifier in storage, and when he was in my studio (l made his Halloween costume), he decided to loan it to me!
It’s absorbed, like, 12 gallons, in under an month!
I use desiccant drum dehumidifiers here. At their 300W setting they pull out about 2 litres of water a day each.
I always wonder why they call it silica "gel" when it's usually glass like beads.
Our robots have a huge silica pack in them about a foot by a foot pack
Never know what you are talking about but it's very nice to listen to. :)
If the humidity feels weird, you need the weird dehumidifier (or, as my wife puts it, "Dehumilifier."
That’s a lot of diamonds in your tray.
I just don't get the desiccant beads. You heat room air and blow it through the shoes and they dry out. What is the point of the beads?
When the beads are dry they will absorb moisture from their surroundings. So if put in an enclosure they will dry it.
Apparently it also serves as a rather invasive heated seat.
OK big man, im gonna need to know how exactly you managed to trim that screwdriver down without damaging fhe shaft!!! Exactly the type i have laying around unused but could ABSOLUTELY be used all the time for those annoying jobs where you need to have longer insertion length. From a fellow tinkerer and person who likes taking things apart (a little too much 😂). Would really be helpful as I need something like this to do works on my wheelchair 🙏🏻☺️😁
Those are intended for electricians and thy shall not tamper with the insulation!Just buy a normal one, those are cheaper and more choice in size and type
@@effedrien I can't find a decent length one that is small enough head size to still work, that's the problem! :(
@@TeddieBean I have done the same as Clive did using a utility knife.
The red outer sleeve is relatively soft, almost rubbery plastic while the metal shaft will normally not be damaged by the utility knife blade.
Hope that helps.
@@psirvent8 thanks! I will see if I can trim it that way :)
@@TeddieBeanYou're welcome.
Take care not to cut yourself as it will be easier to cut the sleeve with a new blade and it can slip unexpectedly.
You mentioned weighing it, how much moisture did it soak up?
This might be useful for an old refrigerator (converted into a meat drier) that I now store 3d printer filament and some electronic components in. So long as I covered the air I let holes and fan outlet hole (for drying meat) it would be a pretty airtight space, so I could see this working.
Reckon it'd work in semi-enclosed spaces too? Or does it only hold like 200ml max?
I've been testing one and in about 2 days it's absorbed 10g (10ml) of water.
Omg I missed your videos
kinda thought you meant rechargable battery....
They sell super overpriced ones at Canadian tire for rifle safes, it's literally a big resistor and and LED connected to a timer to dry them. I hold on to all the silica gel packs, i just put them in the toaster on the lowest setting and watch it for 30 min
Color indicators whether methyl or cobalt is their reduced ability to absorb moisture with regard to the simple transparent non-indicating silica.
Hi
Is there a P.O. Box to send my misbehaving belkin power bank to Big Clive for a dissection.......would be interested in what it was, there are no other markings and why it failed.......
Hey Clive, I'd love to know what you think of activated alumina used instead of silica gel (video?) . I only heard of the stuff fairly recently and it seems to be better in a lot of ways which surprises me why silica gel seems to be used far more often.
I'll check that out.
Out of stock. What a shame. I would love to have this kind of system for my electric car with that little bit to small of a battery. I don't want to use the heating because I am absolutely comfortable at 10°C but I inevitably have to turn up the heating because the stinkin windows fog up. It is not like I don't reach my destination because of the extra energy needed, but sometimes the moisture frosts up the window FROM THE INSIDE! That is a huge pain
These things as an array of 5 or so units sitting some were, run by cheap off period electricity and ready to be taken on an trip on demand, that would be nice.
When you dry the silica pack out aren't you releasing moisture back into the air that you have just dehumidified?
It's used for small enclosures.
OK, let's take a look at this. When you heat up the dehumidifier, it drives the moisture out of it. Where does that moisture go? Out into the room. So do you now place the dehumidifier back into the room to reabsorb the moisture?
If I wanted to dehumidify a whole room, I would use a more powerful refrigerant dehumidifier. If I wanted to dehumidify a small box or cupboard, I would use one of these and then recharge it in a room that wasn't too humid to begin with.
Curious, when you dry the silica gel, doesn't the moisture go right back into the air that it had removed it from?
It is used to keep small enclosures dry.
Does make me wonder though, unless you set the thing outside (or a room with a vent sucking air outdoors), on drying out the silica, it would just re-moisten the air indoors, which would make it somewhat defeat its' own purpose....... :\
I’ve got a few, and that’s exactly how I use it. Absorbs humidity from a sealed bin of 3D printer filament, a linen closet, parts of the basement, then set up the base to dry it on the patio, in the garage, or in the bathroom with the exhaust fan on.
It's for enclosed areas like cabinets or cupboards.
Clive, when are you going to start doing voice-overs for audio stories?!
Hey clive would you mind measuring what temperature this blows?
Im making a silica dryer for loose beads for 3d printing filament.
But im not sure what temperature to go for.
Also thermal fuse is going to be included thanks to your videos where you took one apart.
Currently running at 87C.
@@bigclivedotcom thanks ill try to get close to that was thinking 50 c but thats prpbably a bit too low then.
Thank you very much.
clive, ive got tons of little silica "dont eat" humidity absorbing packets. what would be a good and safe temperature to dry them and recharge them again?
With the packets I'd say 60-90C (140-190F) for a few hours.
They seem to recommend around 100C.
IIRC the color-changing beads I have came with instructions to bake them at ~110-120°C for 1-2 hours. But the higher you go with the temp, the more likely it is that some of the beads will "pop" because the water evaporates too fast and shatters them. So lower temps over a longer time is "safer".
The popping issue is also the reason why many manufacturers tell you to not dry them in the microwave, because that causes the water to turn into steam way too fast, shattering even more beads.
Thank you everybody!
@@NiyaKouyaSurely they still work even if shattered?
Could you by any chance do an experiment on how long it takes that thing to dry the silica gel?
I am looking for a new method that's a bit more energy efficient compared to just putting it in the oven :)
It takes a few hours with the blown hot air.
That screwdriver is not "King" approved
interesting product.... but cannot found it on the other side of the atlantic
It may be under a different brand.
So you run it to dry the air in the room, then reverse it to release all the moisture back into the room?
No. You dry an enclosure and then release the moisture into a bigger area.
Take the dehumidifier apart inside a clear plastic tub to contain the silica gel.
Warm feet for Clive! 😀
How do you recharge the silica gel once it absorbs water?
Put the whole unit in an oven?
You use the supplied heater unit to dry them out, it also dry out your shoes.