Cardboard box food dehydrator

[micropv]

an experiment really, to see if it can work on some garden veggies...

facing the evening sun after a quick assemble using parts I could find around the house (a boot box, a piece of glass, tape, and flat black paint).



temp difference



the guts before painting, 2 pieces 1x, a cookie rack, 2 small shelf racks, a 12v computer fan in which I will use a small pv panel I have to help circulate air and hopefully increase dry time.



going to try a summer squash tomorrow day, then power the fan at night using a couple 12v nimh packs.

[tecker]

How long did it take for the paint to not pass on to the food

[madlabs]

Cool! With the size of the racks, I'm guessing you are going to make another heat collector? How are you planning to enclose the racks?

I am slowly working on an appalachian style dehydrator. I'd love to find some racks like yours, I may have to go to the city and look, none to be found in my area.

Keep us posted!

Jonathan

[micropv]

Cool! With the size of the racks, I'm guessing you are going to make another heat collector? How are you planning to enclose the racks?

I am slowly working on an appalachian style dehydrator. I'd love to find some racks like yours, I may have to go to the city and look, none to be found in my area.

Keep us posted!

Jonathan

First go around was a fail.  The box isn't what I would call air tight by any means, but the amount of moisture produced by the veggies all collected on the glass, and then simply dripped back down on the veggies.

I played yesterday evening and ran it thru the night simply using the fan (12v w 4 leds) to see what would happen, not too much really.

I cut a square in the back of the box to allow more air in, although it is still slightly covered by the outer flap of the box, and added a very small heat source - a 1 watt LED 12v E27 bulb.  I ran it empty and was able to raise the internal temp by 5f, or roughly 85f indoors.

I just started it a little bit ago using only 1 rack versus the two,


so as it stands now, about 2.8 watts give or take, 233ish mah, running indoors.  We'll see...

[madlabs]

In the design I am pursuing the collector is seperate from the food, so no condensation issue. It looks like from my research that if you are making enough heat to dry the food and have a properly designed dryer that fans aren't needed. The heat rise moves all the air you need. I'm at work, so I don't have it handy, but there is a great pdf on design that is linked here:

http://www.fieldlines.com/index.php/topic,147768.0.html

Jonathan

[micropv]

I think what might have put the screws to me was we were fairy dry, then the humidity rolled back in(?)

at any rate, a little progress indoors, started yesterday at a little before 6PM, and then took this shot at 6AM this morning while getting ready for work.  33.6 watts later...



I turned the rack and I turned the light off before I left for work, after all, I have a E27 socket sitting in cardboard.  I took this shot when I got home at 4PM.  61.6 watts later.



They should be very close to "done" before I hit the sack, at least progress in the right direction maybe.  For what it is worth, I couldn't even run my A/C dehydrator for a half hour with 61wh.