Cigar Oasis 101

madurofan

Ok, I've had a Cigar Oasis for quite some time now and have learned a lot about it. I'm going to give everyone a 101 on it.
1.Never, ever, ever trust the hygrometer that is built into it. Everyone I've talked who has one is off at least 2% and there isn't a way that I've seen to calibrate it.
2.You don't need to buy the replacement water cartridges, just make sure you refill with distilled water. If the internal sponge starts to come apart, remove it and clean the cartridge out and fill the cartridge with beads(haven't had to do this myself yet but have heard this from a few guys).
3.The Cigar Oasis is an active humidification system, unlike the sponge, crystals, gels, or beads which are all passive systems. An active system pushes the humidity(water) out to the items(in this case cigars or cedar) where a passive system relies on the item which is less humid to draw humidity from them. The problem with a passive system is that you can not over-fill or under-fill your humidor it most remain at about 2/3 full. Adjustments can be made to compensate for an under or over full humidor with a passive system but I won't go into that here. If your humidor is over-full the passive system can not distribute enough humidification. If it is under-full your cigars will soak up too much water. With a Cigar Oasis whether your humidor has one cigar or is crammed to the point it barely closes it will put out the exact humidity needed. A humidor with the Cigar Oasis also recovers exponentially faster after being opened.
4. Issues with the Cigar Oasis.
a.It will NOT soak up any excess humidity caused by external sources, like beads will. For example if you live in a naturally humid region in the summer the cigar oasis will not do anything when mother nature makes the humidity in your humidor spike unlike the beads. For this reason I now have dry beads in my humidor and when they get completey soaked I will dry them out and put them back in.
b.The second issue is price($85-115). Don't skimp and get the personal if you can avoid it the XL Plus is only 10-15 dollars more and will work in a much bigger humidor just as well as it will in a 50 ct.
c.The only way to tell when it is out of water is to listen for the fan running non-stop. When you press the button that normally displays the RH it will display "H2O" but it only does so when you press the button there is no alarm or flashing or anything.

If anyone has anything to add to this or if you have any questions please feel free to add to this.

urbino

An update on my humi sitchy-ation:

After letting it dry out for about 2 hours last night, at noon today it read 73%. So it is still coming down when I let it dry, but very slowly.

My new humi arrived today! It holds 300, and has 2 accessory drawers. Also, it's purty. The beads did not arrive, yet. So, for lack of a better option, I went ahead and moved the Oasis to the new humi, and put the non-dry cigars I have now in the old one, to keep them from drying out. There's nothing in there to keep things humidified on an ongoing basis, but I'm hoping it'll do until either the new humi is ready or the beads arrive.

Once the new humi is seasoned and the beads arrive, I'll move all my non-dry stogies into it, put some beads in, let the old humi dry out completely, then use the Oasis in it to gradually bring my dried out stogies back to life.

Any suggestions, tips, or things to watch out for would be greatly appreciated!