Ever wonder how to recharge desiccant packs? Here's How.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ส.ค. 2024
- There is a lot of information out there about proper gun storage. No matter what school of thought you ascribe to in your methods there is one thing that everyone can agree on, MOISTURE = BAD! As such everyone recommends different methods to keep your guns, gear, and other stores safe and dry. One of the most popular ways is the use of desiccant packs. The main draw back to doing so is that from time to time they need to be recharged. There is a lot of information out there regarding the different methods to try to recharge them and not all of it is good information. So here's one of the methods we've used to successfully recharge some of our desiccant packs. Its not the only method out there but it is the one that seems to work the best for us.
So I had these things in my gun safe for a few years and had no idea I had to recharge them....I guess this is common knowledge lol.
Very good and scientific. This is exactly how Consumer Reports tests washers and dryers to see the efficiency of each device. The idea is that they take a wet towel, weigh it, then run it through the normal spin cycle and then weigh it. Water has a known weight, so they know how much water was removed, and of course, measuring the wattage used, they can determine how cost efficient it was, as well as how the washer performed in the spin cycle. They do the same thing with dryers. I have heard of these blowing up in a microwave and making a mess.
Thanks, and congrats on your video being relevant ten years on!
Nice job. I scored some huge cargo dry paks from work & I'm looking to use them for the same reasons.
Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.
Silica gel beads should absorb about 40% their own weight in moisture. If yours was totally dry now at 9.9oz, just say 10oz even then when it's full again it should weigh near 14oz.
Do the math on your bags and mark them for the weights, then you can just do a quick weighing to see how dry or wet they are getting so you know when to dry them again next time.
You may know that already, but for others watching and reading it may be a help tip they had not thought of yet.
Also look for any details about the beads you have, some may be different perhaps, I know mine are supposed to absorb 40%
I have the color change beads added to mine so I can just look at them, the way I bought them, and I mostly use them loose for stuff or repack other things like air compresor filters etc..
Thumbs up! Great video! But let me add my own two cents here. When I recharge my siliga gel bags, I usually place them directly on the oven rack AND space them apart. My guess is that if you would have used something like a cookie sheet and SPACED the bags apart more, they would have dried/recharged faster. The outside fabric of the bags needs to be able to breath in order to take-in more heat and discharge more moisture.
pagamenews. I learned that by cooking many $1 pizzas.
I was about to type the same thing. Put them on a cake rack with a pan underneath, in case something goes wrong.
you said you were skeptical of the microwave method, why didn't you just test half of them in each to compare it's effectiveness?
Agree would have been nice to have one put in microwave BUT i appreciate your approach to the problem and weighing as you went. Thanks
Older video but still holds true. And I'm glad you mentioned it depends on the manufacturer. Most will give recharge instructions. Sorb-It recommends 24hrs and to space them so far apart.
It should say on the pack the weight. I have two here that say they're 100 gram packs. That should be the right weight once dry I would imagine.
It does have me curious though since some have time lapsed drying in the microwave shorter times, even as short as 12 minutes @ 50% power per weight of desiccant, if the absorbing rate is different between brands and type of silica beads.
The blue and pink beads are quick recharge from what I've seen. While the white to brown take a long time to recharge (12-24hrs).
The white that turn brown are usually found in commercial packs while the blue and pink are found as a consumer item in jars.
Just curious if there's a absorbtion rate difference that correlates to the recharge times...(?)
Thanks for the sharing your test and the results. And yeah, I tried the microwave thing going by what everyone else on the net said to do. For an hour.. no visible change. So I looked up the brand. Found the instructions.
And yes, mine put off an awful smell just from the micro wave.. best to vent it outside if possible. Like in a toaster oven or something.
Look in the garden center anywhere and buy the water absorbing crystals that are for your garden and then go to the fabric store and buy iron on pelon fabric lining. Iron the crystals in and cut with your rolling circle
If you want to save 8 min of your life I'm gonna go ahead and sum it up - place silica gel packets in oven @275 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour.
you mean 12 hours
My bad. Yes. 12 hours.
Dude.. update your comment... 12 hours.
jesus... 12 hours?
THANK YOU JOHNNY!!!!!!!!!!
Nice video. According to these weighings, these packets, before drying, were only about 8% over their dry weight. (I have seen blogs and spec sheets showing that silica beads will absorb up to 40% of their own weight in water.) Thoughts at large:
- If the silica in this video absorbs 40% of its own weight in water, then these packets had only absorbed 20% of what they were capable of absorbing. In other words, they were only about 1/5 saturated -- pretty dry to start with. I wonder how the drying rate might have changed over time with more highly saturated packs.
- Starting as they were, and *arranged* as they were in a pan, the bulk of the drying took place in under 7 hours. I can't help but wonder:
--- how much quicker they would dry out if the packets were arranged so that air could flow all around them (spaced further apart and placed on a rack within the pan (given that a pan is desirable to catch "accidents")) and
--- how much longer they would have taken were they more "waterlogged" at the start and
--- how much the size of the packets affects the drying time. (I have to believe smaller packs, properly spaced, would dry more quickly.)
I wonder how much the energy cost is to dry these. Obviously, the more packs you can dry at once, the more cost-efficient it would be.
One more thing: if your silica is bagged, you don't care if there are colored indicator beads, which can lose their color-changing function above 250° F. Crank up the oven to 350° F and try this again. Reputable-looking web sites indicate this temperature to be safe for drying silica particles. That being the case, why not dry them at the same time something else (something that isn't generating a lot of steam) is baking at 350°? I'd put the silica pan in a "cool" corner (all ovens have hot spots) on the bottom rack and see how that works. If it works (even if it only serves to get the drying off to a head start, having to leave the packs in the oven for awhile after the food comes out), that's even more money saved.
Nice experiment 💯💯
Why not try a couple of packs in the microwave and a couple in the oven and compare the time V moisture loss. Who really wants to hang around for 12 hours when you can do the same job in a few minutes especially considering the energy cost of running an electric oven for half a day? Interesting but nor really a very scientific approach.
I like your idea.
I agree, I was like, there is no way I'm keeping my oven on for freakin 12 hours.
No disrespect to stingy trigger but at the cost of running your oven that long it would be basically the same cost to just buy new ones
@@nickschoenly742 unless of course you had enough to fill the oven. If you aren't really interested in results you can rub it on your crack and call it good.
Thanks I have seen lots of crappy micky mouse videos and this is the only sound and scientific video
Thank you!
I have mine in a food dehydrator right now, I’ll probably leave it in for a day or two, but I didn’t weigh it. I’m going to weigh it when I pull it out. That’s a good idea.
Thanks for sharing. A nice scientific approach I think, thanks. Commandeering the oven for 6 to 9 hours might cause marital problems so perhaps the microwave solution is better method after all!
You can do the same with a hot box with your relative humidity 40% or below. And you use only 100 watts an hour. Micro waving works best with color changing packets (blue to pink) also, you should space the bags apart from each other to allow for maximum surface area... what good is it if the moisture from one bag has to go through another ? Just some experience of my own.
Then he sun will dry them for free, just taking longer. Like I do with activated charcoal filters: dry in sun for two weeks. Shake out all solids that are now in the form of dust. Set in sun another month to thourougly disinfect. Same can be done with furnace filters.
Thank you
New drinking game... every time this guy says "go ahead" take a shot! Bet you get drunk before the video is over! LOL
Sooo funny! Good one, Lou!
A food dehydrator works well too. 113F (45C) for at least 4 hours.
Considering that 2 tablespoons of 100% silica cat litter (rechargeable too) is overkill for an ammo can, those bags should absorb the great lakes before needing recharged. Ever notice the size of the desiccant packs that manufacturers place into a shoe box or large piece of luggage? My guess is that you are recharging years before you need to. I have small (2" X 2" x 3/4") plastic boxes with the blue desiccant in them (purchased on eBay) and they can go 2 years in a sealed ammo can before starting to turn color, telling you to recharge them soon. 5 minutes in a microwave (on low) and they're good to go for another 2 years. I've purchased 2 quart bottles of the bulk blue desiccant and placed it in larger plastic containers that I've drilled holes into for my gun safe etc. This desiccant is far easier to: use, recognize the need for recharging and recharging than the completed bags.....more cost effective too. Go with cat litter (100% silica) if you really want cost effectiveness while maintaining performance.
You can get a good idea of when you need to dry by the weight if you know it's dry weight. For this video he could have waited probably about 4 times longer than he did.
He lost 0.9oz when drying for a end weight of 9.9oz. Figuring beads should absorb 40% of their own weight, then if he went totally dry and we just round off for easy figuring.
10oz of beads should weigh 14oz once fully used up, he only lost 1oz drying so therefore his beads were only 1/4 full/wetted/used up.
Of course there is no harm in drying too soon, and better safe than sorry. But yes he should have been able to wait much longer if he wanted to or use maybe 1/4 as many beads for the amount of time?
Also, I am using the figure for my beads 40% but that may not be the same for all beads or maybe it is? Maybe his beads would only hold 20% or 30% of there dry weight. Beads can get ruined various ways also, so good to not push the limits to close either.
very useful
I refresh my silica jell packs 4 at a time by microwaving on high for 20 minutes. I haven't performed an experiment on pack weight. I have color beads that indicate when dry.
Inhaled lots of silica sand dust while sandblasting many years ago. I hope it's safer!
A full minute on how to put them in the pan does not inspire confidence.
I read the same that they should have been separated on the racks for better air /drying
The ones that I have say to vent the oven is that really necessary
A couple of hints that may help speed up the process. Instead of a pan use a rack and spread them out a little. Also, never use a gas operated oven to dry it out. probably nothing would happen but just for safetys sake. Good Job!
You are right. Electric oven is for sure better than gas for this purpose. Burning gas creates water as a byproduct so a gas oven at 200 degrees is not as dry as an electric oven at 200 degrees.
I think you'd make a really good teacher. Just curious, where does the moisture go?
When silica "absorbs" water, the water goes into pores in the silica particles. When water is heated above the boiling point (approximately 212° F (100° C)) and turns from a liquid to a vapor (steam), it expands dramatically. When this happens, the pores in the silica can no longer hold the water, so it escapes into the surrounding air.
I tried to call "ENGELHARD" , number is Not in service? ????
I have several of their
"DESICCITE 25" Type l & ll packs.
(Contents 8 Units) and I would like to buy More of them.
Thanks for your excellent video my friend.
i wonder what the electricity cost to run an oven at low temp for 12hrs? i also wonder if it might be just as cost effective to buy new desiccant? i understand that you already have them, as i have quite a few, but i would like to know that the actual cost difference would be between buying new vs recharging with an oven
+Alex Clark wont cost more than $2-$3 at most over 12 hours, but it's a little complicated to calculate accuratly.
In the winter, heat lost from the oven contributes to heating the house. The oven element is controlled by a thermostat so the on time depends on how well the oven is insulated. You would have to connect the oven through a watt-hour meter to determine the actual consumption. You can buy them on ebay but the connection is not simple.
never mind, just saw the answer in comments
From what kind fabric are the bags made?
A microwave is a lot faster, I've just got a 100g reduction (3.5oz) in 20mins at 450W. That was probably a fraction of the cost to just to get your oven up to temp! That was a 1lb bag. Just discovered they make nice handwarmers too....
I got 100 packs of 3 Gram Silica Gel Rechargeable Tyvek Desiccant Packets... how long should I keep these in the microwave? I'm guessing less since it's smaller than the one this guy uses. Also, is it only microwavable if it says to on the packet?
@@Stubby1031 Tyvek doesn't let the moisture out fast enough
the cost in electricity to run the oven is it even worth drying them out?
lol I was thinking the same thing...ovens consume a lot of electricity (comparable to ACs) and running one for 12 hours!!!....dad will probably have a heart attack when the electric bill comes, "you were doing what!!??"
I've wondered the same. Power is $$$.
Many toaster ovens have a "turbo" setting that blows air around.
The climate might allow sun-dried.
A multi-level food dehydrator might work. Cheap at tag sales.
@@ameyas7726I agree with dad.
A rack above the AC unit( don't block the airflow! ask dad)is doable, it's free energy. If running AC, why use an oven if I can't eat the product? Double duty when dad's favorite cake is working.
Please tell dad I turn off my lights too.
If you use the oven in winter when you're paying to heat the house, the additional electricity cost is zero.
If you use it in summer when you're running a/c, then you're paying to add heat and paying again to remove it.
I use a toaster oven. Just keep the temp control knob lower than the recommended temp to avoid melting the tyvek material. Because toaster oven temps are not exact to it's setting. Also, keep the toaster oven door slightly cracked to let moisture escape.
well done thumbs up :D
"ruin your wife's cooking pan (or any of her other stuff) will put you in the dog house....you're not going to be able to buy any fun stuff for yourself for a while".... So true! LOL
The melting point of silicon dioxide is 1,713 °C (3,115 °F or 1,986 K). The 275° F is just enough heat to cause the moisture to turn to vapor. The bags they are in are organic-based as well, usually cotton or other natural fibers - so the worst they'd do is brown or slightly scorch. Parchment paper, which is very similar is regularly used at up to 500° F by comparison.
Needless to say, the wife's cooking pans are safe.
Herm, does your wife really rule over you to that extent?
@@senatorjosephmccarthy2720 My thoughts exactly. Some guys embrace the cuck lifestyle, I know a million of them.
a guy made a video where he checked the humidity inside and outside and there was no difference on the meter. another guy seal all the cracks with silicone
Increase the surface, then those things will dry a lot faster!
Anybody thought to use a food dehydrator instead of running the whole oven?
Expensive 12 hours for that operation
You don't have to "go ahead" just do it! You have not gone A HEAD of anything!
How much did these packs weigh new?
Wouldn't be cheaper to buy new ones rather than pay for 12 hours of heating costs?
I bought some that say you can specifically microwave them. Running an oven all day would be WAY too expensive.
Probably not nearly as much as you'd think. Just because your baking all day does not mean the oven is on all day. It cycles on and off as needed and 250F is not all the much heat so a good oven should be off way more than it's actually on.
Where did you buy those? I can't find them online. Can you help?
Idk, perhaps a gun store.
with the high price of power, would it be cheaper to buy some cat litter and coffie filters to make new ones?
I had the same idea. I did some quick figuring, carried the knot and all, and it would cost him $5.00 to run the oven if he lived in Maine. The desiccant packet are 2 for $15.96. So all told he saved as much as $35. Not bad.
I have a bag I saved.. do t remember where it came from.. thats why I'm here, was trying to figure out how I could've got it.. anyway, bag says reactivation 16hours at 245°F
Drying time might be reduced if using the same "parts pan" and add a cookie rack to allow
air circulation.
If using 12oz to care for a large safe, would 3 4oz packets be different?
Can't you just throw them in the window of your car in the summer on the dash. That will dry out anything.
It may depend a little on the relative humidity of your location.
Closer to the coast I've noticed it took ~2 hours to dry my jeans on the clothesline in the summer sun. When I lived deep inland close to the desert, they were dry in 5 mins. In the time it took me to hang up all my clothes, they had dried. So I could start taking them off the line.
why not just write the weight on each package rather than "x" or "xx" ?
also can you bake it at 300F or 375F to decrease the recharge time ?
A higher temperature will not destroy them if they are silica-based. The melting point of silicon dioxide is 1,713 °C (3,115 °F or 1,986 K), and organic materials similar to the primarily cotton bags used on desiccant packs can survive up to or slightly over 500 degrees °F (parchment paper is an example).
I imagine the low-temperature recommendation is due more towards liability and insurance costs, than actual science. With that said, the goal is simply to remove moisture from the packs - which begins to occur at 210°F at sea level.
You are to gently steam the water out. To do it right you do it at lower temps as you cannot force it to release the steam faster with high heat. If you are recharging a color changing one then you will damage the ability to change color. They can only be recharged so many times and they do not work well anymore and high temps greatly reduces the amount of times you can recharge them and have them still work properly. But, if you Brad want to burn the color changing ability and lower it's effectiveness than you go ahead and use way too high of a heat. It is your money wasted. Maybe you can make some glass too. Jeez.
doesn't it depend on how much moisture is in it? If a person recharges there desiccant every 30 days rather than every 3 months would it not take less time for the 30 days than the 3 month usage? Just wondering not disrespecting.
Yes, basically, but not really. LOL
It all matters how much moisture it has and how fast it cooks out. So yes if only 1/3 the moisture then it would seem it should take only 1/3 the time. Although, you have more time moving it back and forth and more time heating up the oven, etc.. if you do it 3 times instead of just 1 time.
So if the oven takes 10 minutes to heat up one time it would take 30 mintutes doing it 3 times. If you have packs various places you have to round up and put back later and that takes you 30minutes one time then doing it 3 times will take you 1.5hrs
If you let the packs sit and cool an hour after baking doing it once, it would take 3 hours doing it 3 times.
You may gain shorter cook times, but you lose allot on the longer other times if doing it 3 times instead of 1 time.
Also preheating an oven 3 times will use more power than 1 time, though probably not enough to worry about, but it's still more anyway.
Thanks for getting back with me.
Fan oven on the open wire rails 0.7 ounce in 3 hours.
What I do not understand // if water boils at 212 degrees and silica is kept at 275 why is necessary to stay for 12 hours ? Water should evaporate in 10 minutes.
I'm wondering how the packet did not burnt in the oven. 275º is too much for most papers and fabrics.
Much standard paper (wood pulp based) burns at 451° F.
@@BobG127 Yes a movie was called that about book burnings.
In the dog house?
Not how it works in my house.
Nor is it the other way around.
How do you know when the desiccant needs to recharged?
when the silica gels turns blue
How about putting it under the sun? :D just wondering
Looking at it another way you used these for months and they only absorbed the equivalent of a few ounces each. Probably were saturated weeks ago and have not worked for weeks!
7 and a half minutes? just type it out for us :)
Where would I purchase these bags?
There is thing new thing called the Google machine. It works wonders for looking for things online!
Couldn't you put them in a dehydrator
hii Stingy trigger,
why not try one more with mirowave oven... maybe faster..
You said 245 - 275 degrees. Is that Fahrenheit or Centigrade?
centigrade
LOL
If you want a fire, 275 C
If you've ever played with hand grenades you'll find out pretty fast that close is good enough, right? (hypothetically, of course)
The engineer in me likes that you weighed the XX over time, but I thought you would graph it, too. lol.
Anyway, if you look at the data, you will see that for most intents and purposes, 9 hours would have been just fine. Like hand grenades: close enough.
how much desiccant cost ? 12 hours in oven cost $$$$ if your oven 3000 watts
and on/off during in process about 6 hours in total, cost about $6.00
an 8 pound bag of Amazing Cat Litter is $18.17 on Amazon right now
they were sold as low as 8 bucks at one point...
Electric is cheaper than beads for most people! And it really does not matter so much how many watts an oven is, 250F is what matters and how well the oven holds the heat. More heating watts just means the oven will heat much faster when on and turn off sooner. Lower watts would mean it would take longer to heat so be on longer at a time. It's all the same amount of power used either way.
What matters is how well the oven holds the heat once it gets to temps, as that is what triggers it turning back on again, faster it cools off the sooner it has to turn on again. The longer the oven can hold the temperature the less often it has to turn on.
Heating watts do not matter.
Power usage should not be all that much, 25OF is not so hot for an oven, and a decent oven should not need to cycle on very often to maintain the 250F.
Pablo Zamora
Check your brands then at Wall-mart and such. I recently bought several bags of MIMI liter 100% silica beads also at local store, I think it was about $5 for 4lbs, so $10 for 8lbs and I had it same day, no shipping!
Amazing cat was about $15 or $17 for 8lbs at same time, I saw no reason to pay the extra money for it for what I wanted beads for.
Wow where do you buy you electricity? at 10 cents a KWHr 3KW at 6hrs only comes out to $1.80
Don't use an oven. Takes way too much time and energy consumption. Microwave @700 watts for 3 mins or 900 watts for 2 mins.
Microwave is much less time consuming and a superior way of doing it.;-)
Expensive - This exercise would have consumed in the region of $4.50 in electricity costs
Average oven on high consumes 3KW per hour x 12 hours = 36KW hours at 12.4c per KW hour (average for USA 2019) = $4.46
A microwave is much cheaper or better still at no cost, the suns rays on a window shelf if you live in a sunny country.
That's wrong, because the oven does not consume 3 KW all the time. One time, it's preheated, it only has to heat up what has gone lost.
how many times can we say "go ahead"?
That crap drives me nuts. It is like that idiot manager from Office Space.
it would have been useful to see how the microwave compared
+flagpoleeip It will work but you have to do it on LOW. A 1100W oven on 20 or 30% (level 2 or 3) for about 10 minutes. If you run it full out the little crystals or balls will shatter because the water inside will boil, you don't want that. It does seem very silly to spend so much electricity to recharge these unless you have more than about fifty pounds of silica gel it's not.
i'm surprised they don't soak up more of their weight in water.
Silica dioxide soaks up about 40% of its weight in moisture, meaning that he could have waited much longer to recharge these. They should have been good until they weighed at least 13.5-14.0 ounces.
You can buy these for 2 bucks each!
Would be interesting to toss one in the microwave and see if it loses any more weight in just a few minutes.
The only difference between a microwave and a conventional oven for this usage is that moisture doesn't escape a microwave until you open the door. This is the very reason the best way to clean gunk off of the walls of the microwave, is to simply boil water inside of it and let it sit for a few minutes.
The capacity of air within the microwave is certainly more than enough to extract a few ounces of water, and as the silica takes hours to re-absorb the moisture that it loses once the liquid turns to vapor - it won't be in the microwave long enough to re-absorb it.
TL;DR - A microwave is fine, just depending on the capacity of the microwave - you may need to do it a few times, allowing the moisture to leave the microwave in between the multiple recharges.
Microwave, 2 min. bumps. Let cool for 1-2 min. 5 bumps should have them good to go.
PS store them in a ziploc when not using.
i use the microwave. seems faster
What size packs and for how long?
kygent508 I found large packs at work. They area bout 8" long and 4" wide. These packs have little colored pellets inside. These indicate moisture level. The pellets turn blue when "dry". Pink when "wet". Not every pellet changes color when wet, only about 3% change. But it is easy to see. I hold them up to a bright light and try to look through the pack.
I microwave the pack when I don't see the little blue dots inside. About 1 minute at a time.Steam will come out of the pack. I wave the pack in the air to let the steam dry off some. Then , back in the microwave.for 1 minute again. I continue this process until I see many blue pellets. Trail and error. I am not looking for "perfectly dry".
Experiment my friend, you will get the hang of it.
If you don't actually know for sure, you shouldn't be making a video about it.
99
I've seen instructions that say as low as about 10 minutes at 110 degrees... It's still up in the air, because answers to this are inconsistent. - Sure, it's safe to say that heating the stuff for longer will guarantee less moisture in them. But 10-12 hours at like 200 degrees?... I think water would be smart enough to "gtfo" within one. It would get destroyed. - So unless the gel is made of some kind of adamantium or unobtainium or some such thing, I don't think it's going to take that long to just eviscerate (or evaporate) water.
Ever think that manufacturers might exaggerate the process to discourage consumers to reuse them and buy new instead? - Even the explanation on the silcagelpackets website says exactly this, that "it's inefficient and you're better off buying new *wink*". OF COURSE...
plz drop the intro, it only takes away from the video
This is a waste of electricity and time. Just put them in the microwave for 10mins on defrost. Waaayyyyy faster and waaaayyy less energy wasted.
Stop the bloody waffle. Just get on with it for God's sake.
$100.00 of time and expense to save $10.00...
Should have tested microwave too!!
Another mono logger yay Not
haha 7 minutes of absolute bloated waffle. Here's the answer - put them in an over on 170 for 60 minutes. 5 seconds that took.