For those of you who have your room air conditioned 24/7, keeping your stuff dry is not a problem, but you will have condensation issues out in the field as your equipment will be much colder than the ambient temperature.
To solve this problem, ive simply piped the hot exhaust from my PC (which is also on 24/7) into a big plastic storage bin ($20) which is drilled with some of its own exhaust holes. This ensures a constant flow of heated, dry air.
The advantages of this system is its simplicity, low cost and the utilization of an existing heat source. It is working well with the temp and humidity in the box averaging 33C and 45%.
There are however 2 inherent flaws with this system.
1) Constant flow of air = dust. Ive also got a DIY filter system for my PC's intake so it shouldn't be too bad.
2) Temperature and humidity will fluctuate with the PC's load. Proper control of air volume and distribution should make this a non issue.
A more ideal box should be a semi-closed system so there is less chance of dust being introduced. This can be done quite simply by placing an existing 24/7 heat source (such as the UPS) into the box.... but what fun would that be?
16th November 2008
DIY Dry Box
