There are 3 ports on the chamber that I made slits in the plastic to get around and taped them up once around them. Do not tape to the insulation. Tape only to the vapor barrier plastic. It doesn't take long, just be careful. After the plastic is in place and secure around the chamber I sealed the plastic to the back of the front and back panels using the packing tape. All the way around the front and back of the chamber to completely seal the chamber from outside air and humidity.
With that said, I’m married to a woman who puts me to shame with her mechanical maintenance abilities, so after a couple of struggles with changing the oil she now has it down to an art.
I have pelo adverse vacuum performance change with the catch can in place. It just catches any oil. I still smell oil vapor when the pump first starts up, but not nearly as much. I've only emptied the can once or twice since I've had it installed. I slightly over filled the pump and it blew out into the can, then ran it with the FDer valve open for a few minutes. Nothing got past the can. I used the outside port as IN and the middle one as out. I did take the port off and the longer one should be the inlet port. It's not a great deal longer. Tony Edited January 22, 2016 by TonyC updated (log)
In fact, my son’s friends often comment that they wish they could have his freeze dried meals rather than whatever they are eating!
While I had the unit apart to replace the display I decided to correct the water condensation problem. If you find yourself using your FDer in the same conditons as we do you may want to consider Know More modifying your FDer to keep the condensation from your FDer control circuit and display cards. Here are the steps that I followed to minimize what the NC Shop Now high humidity climate does to my FDer.
The unit can also connect to and communicate the freeze dryer cycle data to a nearby PC through an ethernet cable.
Door seal appears good against the plexiglass side, even stripe of contact, nice and wide. Inside gasket groove has been checked for debris and cracks. Looks OK, but the design seems odd to me!
They replied with some good information, but didn't really directly answer the question. I know that there is no one answer for all foods, but a rule of thumb is certainly within reason.
The evaporator coils that touch the surface of the stainless steel vacuum chamber reach about -42 F. With food in the chamber and because the location of the thermister is on the middle shelf of the four shelves, the temperature it records is going to range from -25 to -30 F in the nove hour default freeze time. This temperature is very adequate for freeze drying the food.
Preydrive.ca Bought this freeze dryer for my wife for her pet food business! She is loving it! Trimleaf is also very helpful!
Lean meats work very well. Meats can be freeze dried either raw or cooked. If you are processing beef or pork, be sure to remove as much fat as possible first.
If you have a high volume lab, it’s usually a good idea to have more than one to be safe. Freeze drying ice water hash is the #1 way to dry it because it increases your production speed, enhances its color, retains more delicate terpenes, and sharply limits microbial activity.
Back from our trip I turned the unit on and to my dismay found that the display was missing the middle two lines.
And therein lies the best piece of advice I can offer on this topic: Keep your freeze dryer running. Downtime is wasted time. Some items take a while. Others are quick. But keeping the freeze dryer going almost non-stop is the key to getting the bang for the buck.