I've been messing around with RH beads and other humidifying media for
the last month or two and came up with this RH beadstick idea among others...
http://www.clubstogie.com/vb/showthread.php?t=138682
I struggled with whether or not I'd mess around with them so far as to
offer them to the public, I was pretty content with just dropping them
in bombs and so forth.
Dball mentioned that they were ideal for what he does in a lot of
different ways, and that they'd be ideal in his traveling humi.
I can make up the beadsticks in any vitola (or at least get them
close), but it's a lot of tedious handwork and my arthritis makes it a
chore. It makes things slow, too.
Anyways...
I ran tests on a lot of different medias with a lot of different
additives.
The medias I use were Polyacrylamide (the gel like in drymistats) in two different sizes, four
different grades of RH beads, two different silica gel "chip shaped"
dessicants, and a type of bead called Molecular Beads.
I steeped the different medias in a bunch of different solutions.
The solutions I chose were off the shelf items that were food grade and
safe for use around my cigars. I didn't want anything near my cigars
that I wouldn't put in my mouth.
I used food grade propylene glycol,Magnesium chloride (salt), Sodium
Nitrate (food preservative, it's in your beef jerky), Potassium
Chloride (salt substitute for folks who can't use salt), and Sodium
Chloride (table salt)
If you count up those items, there are 14 items and a huge number of
combinations.
So I took to making up test subjects by combining salts and PG with all
the different test medias. I also used multiple combinations of salts
and pg to create different RH values.
What I found was that I could tweak any of the medias to hold any RH
value I wanted anywhere from 32% all the way up to 86%.
All I really wanted to know is how well any combination would work to
control humidity in my humidor, and how they would work in my
incubators, and other applications.
The reason I chose to use all food grade and the very purest of medias
is that for a lot of years I've provided incubators and humidity
control systems to labs, colleges, hatcheries, The UN's Food and
Agriculture Organization, and to poultry enthusiasts worldwide.
I've invented a couple temperature control systems that are used all
over the world in a number of different applications.
So I knew if I was to create something that was worthwhile, it'd have
to work across the board. I spent a lot of time speaking to overseas
manufacturers and the few major distributors of these products in the
States.
What I found out, across the board, is that none of them had done the
tests that I proposed. Dessicants (all the RH beads are exactly that)
are generally used for drawing moisture out of enclosed areas. They
are used widely in the shipping industry and in the electronics
industry. You know those little packets you find in your beef jerky
bags? I always thought they were Dessicant Packets. They're not.
They're oxygen scavengers. They suck oxygen out of the bag to keep the
jerky fresh.
Back on track...
Some tests were an absolute failure and some worked extremely well.
Rather than go into a metric ton of charts and test data, I worked out
something of a rating system.
I wanted to know how quickly the test subjects would pull humidity out
of the air, and how well they would let humidity back into the air.
It was pretty easy, actually.
All I needed was a see-through box with a divider and a couple
hygrometers. All the tests were done at one temperature, 70F.
Equal amounts of media by weight were used, arranged to expose an equal surface area by square inch. Some products had a distinct advantage because their shape created a much larger surface area per area. Such as beads are round, gel is chunky, while solutions were flat and silica gel chips were flat sided. This factored in heavily, making different shapes a better choice for our application in humidors, as well as in incubators.
I was concerned whether temperature would make a great difference, so I
did a couple quick mockups at 60F and 80F. The difference in reactivity
was negligable, so I was content to leave that alone.
Another thing I found out that went right across the board was that any
treatments I used with the media lessened their reactivity. If I added
salt to beads, they reacted slower. If I added PG to beads (I could
only do this with one grade of beads) it reacted slower.
So I threw out the idea of adding anything to beads.
I knew I could use these solutions to my advantage later, but I won't
get into that yet.
What I wanted to do was to come up with a simple number that would give
an easy means to gauge "how much of what" should I use to achieve the
same results? I scored the least responsive product at 1.0 and the most responsive product at 10.0.
It would also allow me a means to calculate expense quickly and easily.
Here follows the numbers I came up with...
Grade 1 chips 1.0
Grade 2 Chips 1.3
Size 1 Poly Gel 4.0
Size 2 Poly Gel 3.6
Grade 1 Beads 2.0
Grade 2 Beads 5.0
Grade 3 Beads 6.1
Grade 4 Beads 6.6
Grade 1 MBeads 10.0
I also did quickie tests on four different popular bead products and one gel product that are used in conservatory applications (museums) and in our humidors.
I found only one commonly used product scored very low, at 3.4.
Three scored in the 6.0 to 6.5 range.
There was one product that stood out at 7.4.
Regardless of the score, all the consumer bead products I tested were an excellent value as indicated by cost per product efficiency ratio excepting the one gel product. It would be of equal value if it was priced at 25% to 40% of it's current cost. Arranging the gel differently to provide more surface area would increase it's value.
I did find out one thing that's been debated heavily.
I tested the Kitty Litter that folks have gone on about.
It takes a little over 3 times the amount of Kitty Litter to do the job of one volume of any of the bead products we currently use.
One good thing about kitty litter is that it doesn't explode on contact with water. There's a reason why that is, but I'm not going into it because it's windy and very technical and boring. )The Molecular beads also do not explode when water hits them.
Suffice to say that if you have three pounds of litter in your humi covering 3 square feet of floor space, it will do the job of one pound of the RH beads covering one one square foot of floor space.
I don't have room in my humi or wine coolers for all those beads. I need to put cigars in there.
I've heard a lot of argument about the "quality" of kitty litter beads possibly being lower than that of the other RH beads. I spoke to the manufacturer (who coincidentally makes all the grades I used) and they are manufactured to identical specifications.
Another thing I found...
I found exactly ONE manufacturer of silica based beads in the world.
That was after chasing down each product through MSDS sheets and product ingredients. If there are any others I'd like to know about them. I also found only one manufacturer of the MRHbeads. They offer two different labratory grades of those beads, I choose the product with the smallest pores.
One last thing I found...
Once RHbeads have been in direct contact with water, explode and turn to powder, it's ability to perform in these tests decreased dramatically. It's because as a powder it's lost a great proportion of it's effective surface area. Although it still worked as intended, it lost a great deal of it's abilty to react quickly to humidity changes in it's environment, and lost a large amount of it's ability to hold water that can be made available to it's surrounding atmosphere, meaning it would not last nearly as long without needing to be reconditioned. As a result of these circumstances, powdered beads faired very poorly so I threw those results out of my test data.
Those tests results do say one thing to me. NEVER pour water directly on beads. It severely diminishes their capabilities. Use a conditioning bag or simply set a tray of water near the beads and be patient. It will prolong the life of your beads dramatically and increase their value exponentially.
In summary...
I have concepted about a dozen different products based on my tests.
I'm most excited about offering them in the lab and hatchery industries because I'm at home there and have been for almost 15 years.
The outlet is already there and I can help a lot of folks in a lot of different applications.
The cigar keeping addiction is new to me and it'll take awhile for me to apply what I've learned to keeping humidity in my humi and my wine coolers. I've guinea pigged my two wine coolers from the start and have tried a number of different things in my humi, all with varying results.
I've already developed a system of sorts that employs the RHbeads in stretch polyester fabric that works real well. I've created conditioning bags using polygel and a 51/49 PG solution for conditioning beadsticks at 70%. That combination yields a rock solid 69% RH in my far less than stellar leaky humidor.
In the next few days I will finish creating a 65% RH system.
I've narrowed down what I'm going to use, as well. I'll be using salts, PG Solution, polygel, distilled water, RHbeads and MHbeads. All the products are Food Grade or intrinsically safe to be used around my cigars. I'm incredibly anal about those sorts of things.
My main problem is that I only have so much time to devote to this as I'm busy working on lab and hatchery systems right now. It's the height of hatching season and soon the colleges and labs will be heavily involved in West Nile Virus testing, meaning just about every incubator in the United States will be fired up and struggling with humidity control.
I feel it's important to devote my efforts to those areas first, although I admit I'm having a lot more fun playing with my cigars.
I can prepare humidor applications far more quickly because they are far less technically demanding.
In the coming weeks, I'll be able to offer some of the RHbeadsticks and MHbeadsticks, along with their corresponding conditioning bags.
I've already sent some out to some of the Gorillas here and I have some more prototypes made that I'll be sending out shortly.
I should be able to offer all the different systems at a very competitive prices at first, only getting better later once I can scope the volume. I may just bag the whole thing, because I don't know that I have the time to devote to all of this. I'm pretty much on the fence right now.
I do have the support of the leading dessicant distributor in the States, and they are excited about seeing my results, and are excited to see the tools I invent for conditioning bead products.
So I'm just going to take it a day at a time and see what happens.
I sure hope I didn't bore you all to tears!!!
Scott
the last month or two and came up with this RH beadstick idea among others...
http://www.clubstogie.com/vb/showthread.php?t=138682
I struggled with whether or not I'd mess around with them so far as to
offer them to the public, I was pretty content with just dropping them
in bombs and so forth.
Dball mentioned that they were ideal for what he does in a lot of
different ways, and that they'd be ideal in his traveling humi.
I can make up the beadsticks in any vitola (or at least get them
close), but it's a lot of tedious handwork and my arthritis makes it a
chore. It makes things slow, too.
Anyways...
I ran tests on a lot of different medias with a lot of different
additives.
The medias I use were Polyacrylamide (the gel like in drymistats) in two different sizes, four
different grades of RH beads, two different silica gel "chip shaped"
dessicants, and a type of bead called Molecular Beads.
I steeped the different medias in a bunch of different solutions.
The solutions I chose were off the shelf items that were food grade and
safe for use around my cigars. I didn't want anything near my cigars
that I wouldn't put in my mouth.
I used food grade propylene glycol,Magnesium chloride (salt), Sodium
Nitrate (food preservative, it's in your beef jerky), Potassium
Chloride (salt substitute for folks who can't use salt), and Sodium
Chloride (table salt)
If you count up those items, there are 14 items and a huge number of
combinations.
So I took to making up test subjects by combining salts and PG with all
the different test medias. I also used multiple combinations of salts
and pg to create different RH values.
What I found was that I could tweak any of the medias to hold any RH
value I wanted anywhere from 32% all the way up to 86%.
All I really wanted to know is how well any combination would work to
control humidity in my humidor, and how they would work in my
incubators, and other applications.
The reason I chose to use all food grade and the very purest of medias
is that for a lot of years I've provided incubators and humidity
control systems to labs, colleges, hatcheries, The UN's Food and
Agriculture Organization, and to poultry enthusiasts worldwide.
I've invented a couple temperature control systems that are used all
over the world in a number of different applications.
So I knew if I was to create something that was worthwhile, it'd have
to work across the board. I spent a lot of time speaking to overseas
manufacturers and the few major distributors of these products in the
States.
What I found out, across the board, is that none of them had done the
tests that I proposed. Dessicants (all the RH beads are exactly that)
are generally used for drawing moisture out of enclosed areas. They
are used widely in the shipping industry and in the electronics
industry. You know those little packets you find in your beef jerky
bags? I always thought they were Dessicant Packets. They're not.
They're oxygen scavengers. They suck oxygen out of the bag to keep the
jerky fresh.
Back on track...
Some tests were an absolute failure and some worked extremely well.
Rather than go into a metric ton of charts and test data, I worked out
something of a rating system.
I wanted to know how quickly the test subjects would pull humidity out
of the air, and how well they would let humidity back into the air.
It was pretty easy, actually.
All I needed was a see-through box with a divider and a couple
hygrometers. All the tests were done at one temperature, 70F.
Equal amounts of media by weight were used, arranged to expose an equal surface area by square inch. Some products had a distinct advantage because their shape created a much larger surface area per area. Such as beads are round, gel is chunky, while solutions were flat and silica gel chips were flat sided. This factored in heavily, making different shapes a better choice for our application in humidors, as well as in incubators.
I was concerned whether temperature would make a great difference, so I
did a couple quick mockups at 60F and 80F. The difference in reactivity
was negligable, so I was content to leave that alone.
Another thing I found out that went right across the board was that any
treatments I used with the media lessened their reactivity. If I added
salt to beads, they reacted slower. If I added PG to beads (I could
only do this with one grade of beads) it reacted slower.
So I threw out the idea of adding anything to beads.
I knew I could use these solutions to my advantage later, but I won't
get into that yet.
What I wanted to do was to come up with a simple number that would give
an easy means to gauge "how much of what" should I use to achieve the
same results? I scored the least responsive product at 1.0 and the most responsive product at 10.0.
It would also allow me a means to calculate expense quickly and easily.
Here follows the numbers I came up with...
Grade 1 chips 1.0
Grade 2 Chips 1.3
Size 1 Poly Gel 4.0
Size 2 Poly Gel 3.6
Grade 1 Beads 2.0
Grade 2 Beads 5.0
Grade 3 Beads 6.1
Grade 4 Beads 6.6
Grade 1 MBeads 10.0
I also did quickie tests on four different popular bead products and one gel product that are used in conservatory applications (museums) and in our humidors.
I found only one commonly used product scored very low, at 3.4.
Three scored in the 6.0 to 6.5 range.
There was one product that stood out at 7.4.
Regardless of the score, all the consumer bead products I tested were an excellent value as indicated by cost per product efficiency ratio excepting the one gel product. It would be of equal value if it was priced at 25% to 40% of it's current cost. Arranging the gel differently to provide more surface area would increase it's value.
I did find out one thing that's been debated heavily.
I tested the Kitty Litter that folks have gone on about.
It takes a little over 3 times the amount of Kitty Litter to do the job of one volume of any of the bead products we currently use.
One good thing about kitty litter is that it doesn't explode on contact with water. There's a reason why that is, but I'm not going into it because it's windy and very technical and boring. )The Molecular beads also do not explode when water hits them.
Suffice to say that if you have three pounds of litter in your humi covering 3 square feet of floor space, it will do the job of one pound of the RH beads covering one one square foot of floor space.
I don't have room in my humi or wine coolers for all those beads. I need to put cigars in there.
I've heard a lot of argument about the "quality" of kitty litter beads possibly being lower than that of the other RH beads. I spoke to the manufacturer (who coincidentally makes all the grades I used) and they are manufactured to identical specifications.
Another thing I found...
I found exactly ONE manufacturer of silica based beads in the world.
That was after chasing down each product through MSDS sheets and product ingredients. If there are any others I'd like to know about them. I also found only one manufacturer of the MRHbeads. They offer two different labratory grades of those beads, I choose the product with the smallest pores.
One last thing I found...
Once RHbeads have been in direct contact with water, explode and turn to powder, it's ability to perform in these tests decreased dramatically. It's because as a powder it's lost a great proportion of it's effective surface area. Although it still worked as intended, it lost a great deal of it's abilty to react quickly to humidity changes in it's environment, and lost a large amount of it's ability to hold water that can be made available to it's surrounding atmosphere, meaning it would not last nearly as long without needing to be reconditioned. As a result of these circumstances, powdered beads faired very poorly so I threw those results out of my test data.
Those tests results do say one thing to me. NEVER pour water directly on beads. It severely diminishes their capabilities. Use a conditioning bag or simply set a tray of water near the beads and be patient. It will prolong the life of your beads dramatically and increase their value exponentially.
In summary...
I have concepted about a dozen different products based on my tests.
I'm most excited about offering them in the lab and hatchery industries because I'm at home there and have been for almost 15 years.
The outlet is already there and I can help a lot of folks in a lot of different applications.
The cigar keeping addiction is new to me and it'll take awhile for me to apply what I've learned to keeping humidity in my humi and my wine coolers. I've guinea pigged my two wine coolers from the start and have tried a number of different things in my humi, all with varying results.
I've already developed a system of sorts that employs the RHbeads in stretch polyester fabric that works real well. I've created conditioning bags using polygel and a 51/49 PG solution for conditioning beadsticks at 70%. That combination yields a rock solid 69% RH in my far less than stellar leaky humidor.
In the next few days I will finish creating a 65% RH system.
I've narrowed down what I'm going to use, as well. I'll be using salts, PG Solution, polygel, distilled water, RHbeads and MHbeads. All the products are Food Grade or intrinsically safe to be used around my cigars. I'm incredibly anal about those sorts of things.
My main problem is that I only have so much time to devote to this as I'm busy working on lab and hatchery systems right now. It's the height of hatching season and soon the colleges and labs will be heavily involved in West Nile Virus testing, meaning just about every incubator in the United States will be fired up and struggling with humidity control.
I feel it's important to devote my efforts to those areas first, although I admit I'm having a lot more fun playing with my cigars.
I can prepare humidor applications far more quickly because they are far less technically demanding.In the coming weeks, I'll be able to offer some of the RHbeadsticks and MHbeadsticks, along with their corresponding conditioning bags.
I've already sent some out to some of the Gorillas here and I have some more prototypes made that I'll be sending out shortly.
I should be able to offer all the different systems at a very competitive prices at first, only getting better later once I can scope the volume. I may just bag the whole thing, because I don't know that I have the time to devote to all of this. I'm pretty much on the fence right now.
I do have the support of the leading dessicant distributor in the States, and they are excited about seeing my results, and are excited to see the tools I invent for conditioning bead products.
So I'm just going to take it a day at a time and see what happens.
I sure hope I didn't bore you all to tears!!!
Scott
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