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arXiv · 2112.08500

OpenHumidistat: Humidity-controlled experiments for everyone

Lars B. Veldscholte·Sissi de Beer
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Abstract

Humidity control is a crucial element for a wide variety of experiments. Yet, often naive methods are used that do not yield stable regulation of the humidity, are slow, or are inflexible. PID-based electropneumatic humidistats solve these problems, but commercial devices are not widespread, typically proprietary and/or prohibitively expensive. Here we describe OpenHumidistat: a free and open-source humidistat for laboratory-scale humidity control that is affordable (<500 EUR) and easy to build. The design is based around mixing a humid and dry air flow in varying proportions, using proportional solenoid valves and flow sensors to control flow rates. The mixed flow is led into a measurement chamber, which contains a humidity sensor to provide feedback to the controller, to achieve closed-loop humidity control.

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Lars B. Veldscholte, Sissi de Beer. 2021-12-15. OpenHumidistat: Humidity-controlled experiments for everyone. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ohx.2022.e00288

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