De Hy DIY - How to make a DIY Food Dehydrator for Cheep

JMelitus
Dec 14, 2016
1 min read

This post describes how I made my own Dehydrator out of bits I had lying around.

I had this idea a while ago when a friend professed to purchasing a branded one for BIG bucks (in comparison) so I made one.

Pine tongue and groove for the outer shell

Two 5v PC fans pinched from a laptop cooler tray

One UK mains to 5v usb plug

One hammer to break apart said plug to harvest circuit board

One role of Aluminium tape (gaffa/duck and foil will work almost as well)

Two bulbs and sockets (idealy matching)

One cookie cooling rack (I made two by chopping it up)

Off-cuts of voil or mosquito mesh to defend against intruders

Optional Dimmer switch for optimum temperature control

So I pulled apart the usb plug and harvested the circuit board. Then I soldered together the mains connections and wired up the bulbs to the dual dimmer switches respectively. Finally covered it all in the Alu tape for insulation and heat reflection.

A load of no more nails a few nails and robert is your mothers brother :)

On the initial trial run I got a reading of 44 degrees C and 10.5% humidity