Anyone Made Their Own Dehydrator?

Hey all:)

I was just wondering if anyone here has made their own dehydrator? I really want to get one, but the excaliburs are so expensive to ship to New Zealand! Plus all the “cheaper” models are really expensive here too…well for what that do anyway. So I googled making your own and I found a few interesting links…and it really doesn’t look that hard to do. I know that you would need to monitor food temps closely at first, to check that it is not going to get to hot, and probably incorporate a fan in there somewhere…but apart from that I don’t see anything really going against it? Anyway I am really curious to know if anyone has tried doing this before? Thanks:)

Comments

  • Also…do the fans in the excalibur dehydrators suck cold air from the outside or just circulate the warm air inside?

  • I want to make a sun oven because I live in a cold climate, and I’d like to try sun-baked chips and breads. Please let us know if you figure out how to make a dehydrator. I love being handy and saving money at the same time.(Of course, being handy often COSTS me money – from messing it all up and having to buy it anyway!)

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    Chris made us one. It is about 3 times the size of an Excalibur and only cost a few quid. He used a metal shelving unit, and put cardboard over the frame to make a box, with cardboard flaps to open and close the shelves. He put 4 lightbulbs at the bottom shelf, and a fan. The air flow was made to go round all the shelves top to bottom using a duct system, all made of cardboard. It works really well and only took him a couple of hours to make.

  • okraokra Raw Newbie

    when my friend bought dehydrator from dryit.com (they use no fan and explain why don’t need them), and saw couple of info of home made dehydrator, made me want build them so bad! but i was too nerves to make them…..

    great job zoe! and good luck angel_NZ!!! and thank you!, now i feel i can do it!!!

    http://www.k-clements.fsnet.co.uk/dehydrator.html http://www.appropedia.org/Chris%27s_ENGR305_Sol…

    oh, looks like the excalibur just circulate the air inside, but the door’s kind of loose so still air can gets in and out.

  • okraokra Raw Newbie

    one more things; the dehydrator from dryit.com, the heating wire is on a bottom and they suck air from out side and they has little opening on a top so air can flow better. to use both dehydrator with fan or no fan, to me excalibur seems much faster. never used sun dehydrator i really wanna try them! anyone made/used them before?

  • Thanks for the input everyone! Zoe, that sounds really good…maybe I will give it a go. Did Chris make up the design himself or follow instructions?

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