At 09:35 PM 9/16/99 -0400, Gregg Iverson wrote:
>Sorry, I couldn't resist.
>
>Garth Wood wrote:
>>
>
>> All the silica gel etc. from craft stores tends to be quite dusty --
>that's why I always avoided it and went for commercial dessicant products.
>
>Put some water on it to keep the dust down. <g>
>
>
>Seriously, how do you tell when the little bags that come with stuff has
>reached it's saturation limit? There were comments a while back that it
>is not all good reusable desiccant. I believe the caution was against
>the stuff found in shoe boxes.
It's a bit of a crap shoot. Silica gel sometimes comes packed with little
nodules interspersed amongst the regular gel, which turn pink when saturated
with moisture and clear (or light blue) when re-heated until all the moisture's
been driven out. I tried using bags of this stuff that computer equipment
originally came packed in, but re-activation of silica gel is a multi-hour
process in a conventional oven (had no luck with microwaves), and the little
bags tended to fall apart (their edges are simply glued shut).
Many of the other bagged types are one-shot products containing some type of
hydrophilic clay-like stuff that cannot be re-activated. Looks like small,
jagged granules, light grey, when poured out of the bag. My rule of thumb is:
if it came in a bag or box that wasn't hermetically sealed, you can virtually
guarantee that it's already saturated and (unless it's rechargeable) is
therefore of no further use to you.
Even sealing freshly reactivated cartridges (along with the camera equipment,
natch) into heavy-duty plastic freezer bags using twist ties doesn't seem to
solve the problem of humidity for extended periods -- I get about 10 days to 2
weeks out of such a setup, and then I have to re-activate again. Pain in the
butt. Regardless of my wife's feelings about this, I may have to spend the
bucks for a truly airtight case. Plus, I'm probably gonna have to learn how to
disassemble/re-assemble my lenses, since I've found a slight amount of fungus
inside my 200/4.0, and I'd like to get it cleaned out before it starts to
"etch" the glass (my 100/2.0's presently at Norwood in Mississauga, awaiting
such a cleaning and possible replacement of the front element). Damn and Blast
It All, Anyways. :-/
Garth
"A bad day doing photography is better
than a good day doing just about
anything else."
The Unofficial Olympus Web Photo Gallery at:
http://www.taiga.ca/~gallery/
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