Contributed by:
InjectTruth
Submitted: January 17th, 2005
Well, after
months of deliberating how to dry stealthily, I decided
to make my own version of Quickgrow's Herb Dryer, which
they sell for $365!
PHASE 1 : The Plan
The drier is just a Rubbermaid with a carbon
filter in it, with a fan sucking air through the filter
and out of the cab. My only question was the type of fan
used/CFM rating/etc. I discovered the pro-built boxes
use only a cheap little muffin fan.
PHASE 2 :
Gather Materials In total this cost me about
$55-60:
Rubbermaid container (about $15).
Inline fan - $22
scrubber - parts- $25,
carbon- $10
electrical cord - from a power strip
(thanks, Dub.)
shelves and mounts - hardware cloth
leftover from scrubber plans and screws I had laying
around.
I had to decide which fan and filter to
use. Well, after seeing prices on fans and filters, I
was discontent. I came upon the SunScrubber, which I?m
sure many of you are endearingly familiar with, and I
knew it was right. Not so much because its sleek and bad
as hell, but because its cheap and customizable.
While on the Home Depot trip to pick up scrubber
materials, I was looking at their selection of inline
fans. They had 4" - 80cfm, 6" - 250cfm, and 8" - 500cfm.
I grabbed the 4" (80 cfm) because my scrubber uses a 4"
opening, and because I believe 250 cfms is too much for
this purpose. It cost $21.99. The 250cfm was only
$24.99.
PHASE 3 : Construction First,
I constructed my scrubber. See this link for details:
DIY
Pro-Style Compact Carbon Filter/Scrubber >$50
(by Sun is Shining)
I traced a circle
around my inline fan to mark where it would be placed on
the Rubbermaid. Using a butter knife and a lighter (the
absolute worst way to do this) I cut a hole to snuggly
fit my inline fan.
The fan was pushed through,
with the fan blowing out of the box. The scrubber was
slipped right onto the fan.
The drying racks:
for this, I stuck some 3" screws through the sides to
act as rails, on top of which is placed appropriately
sized sheets of hardware cloth, which were left over
from the scrubber. I will be utilizing 3 trays, approx.
3" apart vertically, giving me a little under 12
ft
2 drying area.
I drilled a bunch of
little holes in the lid for intakes. If these holes
become an odor leak during the trial run, I will remedy
this by purchasing a replacement odor stop furnace
filter sheet, and place it over the holes, on the inner
side of the lid.
How does it work? I
have run the first test with this machine and it has
passed with flying colors. It dried the small white
rhino buds from my 125w cfl grow in 2 days. They were
crispy, but after being in the jar overnight, they have
regained some pliability.
Also, no odor was
detected from the drying process. The room even seemed a
little fresher.
[Editor's note: it is easy and
worthwhile to put the fan on a dimmer to slow down the
rpm's and make drying a little slower. For best results,
hook the fan up to a humidistat to dial in your relative
humidty to a desired r.h.%]
