FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello, friends!

So I'm going to be gone for roughly 9 days around Christmas and I was wanting to figure out how to improve the setup of the cabinet for when I travel. There's 2 devices I think I need switch out in order to minimize the amount of work needed for someone to come over while I'm gone to check on things.

Currently I have a $40 humidifier that I unfortunately

1. Have to fill up too frequently
2. Can't control with the inkbird controller I got

The other thing are the fans. To get the humidity up to 90% during the evenings I turn the fans down, and in the morning I turn them back up. The main purpose of the fans is to give the interior of the cabinet some airflow to prevent molding.

I was wondering if anyone has a suggesting for a larger capacity humidifier that I can control with an Inkbird controller, and if there's a DC-AC power supply for CPU fans that allows you to control their speed remotely.

I'm currently seeing if keeping both the humidifier and fans at lower outputs helps with the situation, and I think next week I'm going to weather strip a couple of spots in the cabinet so that it holds in humidity better.

I don't know anything about your setup, but I have a $15 drugstore humidifier that is basically a heating element suspended over a container of water. You can substitute the container with a washtub or horse trough depending on how much capacity you need. The humidifier turns on as long as it's plugged in.

Not sure if there's an off-the-shelf solution for the CPU fan... could probably rig something up with a potentiometer and arduino but it might just be easier to have two or three fans plugged into "smart" outlets from Wyze. Turn on a different number of fans depending on how much airflow you need.

elaineo wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 1:57 am I don't know anything about your setup, but I have a $15 drugstore humidifier that is basically a heating element suspended over a container of water.

Hmmm, what does that look like, elaineo? The one I have from CVS is an "atomizing" humidifier, so the water goes down to an atomizing disc and get evaporated and then the vapor goes up a tube.

I've seen misters that come with a pump tube you can stick in whatever water container, but I don't want to be misting the plants (especially Sundews).

elaineo wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 1:57 am Not sure if there's an off-the-shelf solution for the CPU fan... could probably rig something up with a potentiometer and arduino but it might just be easier to have two or three fans plugged into "smart" outlets from Wyze. Turn on a different number of fans depending on how much airflow you need.

Hmmm, well, I've always want to do some kind of project with something like Arduino. Maybe I could into that, or maybe I can just plug the fan power into the timed outlet I have for the lights. I imagine so long as there's airflow during the day, things might be fine.

alecStewart1 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 3:57 pm
Hmmm, what does that look like, elaineo? The one I have from CVS is an "atomizing" humidifier, so the water goes down to an atomizing disc and get evaporated and then the vapor goes up a tube.

It looks similar to this: https://www.amazon.com/Vicks-Vaporizer- ... B0000TN7ME

elaineo wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 4:44 pm It looks similar to this: https://www.amazon.com/Vicks-Vaporizer- ... B0000TN7ME

Oooooh okay. So in that 5th picture there, the thing that's on the counter, that's the device? That makes sense. I wonder if I could get something like that, and then get a tube to guide the air into the cabinet.

Though, at the moment, it might just be better to get a 4 liter tank humidifier that people use for their pet reptiles.

This is the one I have:

https://www.cvs.com/shop/pure-enrichmen ... did-307295

And that's only 1.5 liters. More than doubling the water tank capacity might help in my case.

alecStewart1 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 6:12 pm This is the one I have:

https://www.cvs.com/shop/pure-enrichmen ... did-307295

And that's only 1.5 liters. More than doubling the water tank capacity might help in my case.

Oh, if that's all you need, get one of these mini water pumps, plus a length of aquarium tubing. Drill a 1/4" hole in the top of your cool mist humidifier, and feed the aquarium tube into the hole. Connect the other end of the tube to the water pump and submerge it in a 5-gallon bucket of water. Plug the water pump into an outlet timer. Set it to run for ~15 minutes a day, or however long it takes to refill the humidifier.