[airhog]

I use my food dehydrator. I just put it in there overnight and it works great!

[kelly]

This thread reminds me of my brother inlaw. He heats his lunch behind his radiator on his truck. He made a wire rack on the back of the radiator. Wraps his lunch in tinfoil puts it in always has a hot lunch. Dry your mold on your way to work.

[MGrant]

Vodkaman, I am very interested in making a small POP dryer. I do have a question regarding the design. If I am correct the idea is to basically remove moisture. So the dryer the air passing over the mold the more moisture that can be removed. I have access to medical grade air drying chemicals (like dessicants) used for drying nitrogen that is put into auto racing tires. I am thinking of folding up an aluminum sheet metal box with an incadesent light fixture. Then using a computer fan to pull air through this pellatized chemical, to remove humidity, into the box. Then vent air out. Any thoughts, or is there little advantage to drying the air?

[Vodkaman]

This idea was borne from a discussion on oven drying and its problems. It is based on commercial drying oven design, taken from the internet.

The most important things are to keep the air moving to promote evaporation and don't let the temperature of the air rise above the safe max for the plaster (about 120F, I mentioned it earlier in the thread).

My only concern with the drying chemicals method that you're thinking about, is health and safety. If you can find a solution to these issues, go for it.

You could probably build it so that it uses both methods. Then you can report back with the comparison results.

[MGrant]

I would hold to the basic ideas of 120 degrees and airflow. The idea is simply to pass the incoming air through a pellatized material that absorbes moisture (no health issues, just don't eat eat), in turn drying the incoming air. The drying material is similar to desicant packs that you find inside a pair of new shoes. The theory being that incoming air with high moisture content cannot remove moisture as effectively as dry air. The theory sounds good, I was just curious if anyone else thought it might actually be effective.

[Vodkaman]

Sounds good, your theory is sound.

Is it possible to dry this substance in the oven, thus making it re-usable? We are talking a lot of moisture, I have noticed 30 - 40% weight reduction of the PoP mold during the drying process.

[MGrant]

That is an interesting question, I do not know if you can recharge this material, that is something I will look into. I am going to get something going on this "easy bake oven" and I will post what I come up with. Thanks for you thoughts.

[King Bait Co.]

Would a cheap toster oven work? That way you don't destroy the boss'es (wife) oven. Would a smoker like the one's in the netcraft catalog work? Could using a chemical to dry cause toxic fumes when you pour? airhog had a good idea simple and works.

[MTfishingrods]

Just my opinion, for what its worth and thats about nothing, but I spent 18 years in the Heating and AC buisiness. A temp controll is cheap and I would think absolutely necesary for what your trying to do. You can get by without the humidity controls but I would bet anything by the time you are done screwing around with different lightblbs and faan speeds and moving it to different locations based on outdoor weather temps ie. sun beating down on it vs shade(assuming this is located outside which it should be).Throw a 20.00 temp control on there and save yourself the frustration. In fact look in granger and you may even find the small fan you need that will be 110volt so you wont need to use 12v either, but thats really not that big of a deal.

[Vodkaman]

After 18 years in a relevant industry, your opinion is worth a lot. I do agree with you, a temp control would be an advantage. I have designed circuits for temp controls for brewing equipment and for my pet tarantula!

I did not include such a control, because this usually scares people off the project as too complicated, also, I doubt that the temperature is that critical for what we do, considering most members (including myself) dry the PoP in an oven. The temperature references were included because they were quoted in the industrial design article that I based the idea on.

The object was to come up with a quick, cheap and efficient way to dry PoP without using the bosses oven. As I live in a rented apartment from the landlord from hell, I am quite happy to use his oven.