This is topic Outdoor winter storage of electronics in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 11-02-2002, 01:55 PM:
How bad of an idea would it be to store video tape machines in a shed over the winter? I would store them inside, but I just dont have the room. How hard would the cold be on the electronics and mechanisms in the machines? Would rust be a problem?Josh
Posted by Adam Fraser (Member # 1074) on 11-02-2002, 02:28 PM:
I would think that the moisture would be much more troublesome than the cold on the electronics. Which would also cause rust and corrosion.
Posted by Jeff Stricker (Member # 224) on 11-02-2002, 03:16 PM:
Josh, I've stored a lot of electronics in my storage barn. Providing things are dry, you will have good luck. If you bring things in from the cold, allow them to come to room temperature and condensation to dry before powering up.Condensation can cause leakage problems on hi impedance circuits, and electrolytic capacitors "freeze" up in cold temps and need to warm up before they start acting like capacitors again. (Just becaue condensation is gone from the outside doesn't mean that it's off the circuit boards inside the case)
Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 11-02-2002, 03:52 PM:
Bag them in plastic, preferably airtight. Garbage bags would probably be sufficient; at any rate better than nothing.--jhawk
Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 11-02-2002, 04:55 PM:
Thanks for the advice guys.Josh
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 11-02-2002, 05:28 PM:
If you can find some of those little silica gel decicant packs that are often packed in electronics cartons to absorb moisture it might be a good idea.If you save up a few of them in a plastic bag and then bake them in a hot oven you can rejuvinate them and use them over and over again.
It couldn't hurt, anyway. 
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 11-02-2002, 06:54 PM:
I'm not too sure about bagging them up. I have bagged things up in supposedly in air tight plastic bags, only to come back some time later and find things rusted. I don't know of any trash can bags that are air tight. The thing is, they still breath, and if moisture gets in, (which it will) there is no place for it to escape as atmosphere conditions change. If you could find an absolutely airtight container, that would be a way to go. If you use an airtight container of some sort, release the pressure/vacuum first before an attempt is made to remove the lid.
With positive pressure, your face print will soon be in the cover. Been there.... 
And yes, make sure the equipment comes up to room temperature and is completely moisture free-before it is powered up.
If you do want to bag them up, do as Randy suggests. Get some silica gel desiccant and check it on a regular basis as needed. I would guess you would also be in good shape once it drops below the dewpoint and stays below that point.
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-02-2002, 06:56 PM:
Josh, Take Randy's suggestion as absolute law. Condensation can cause lots of damage, expecially on metal part (where moisture will tend to condense first). You don't want to wrap anything in plastic that will be in an environment where the temp will drop significantly later. They sell larger bags of silica desiccant in hardware stores designed to extract moisture from basements -- they are fine for your equipment bags.
One thing I found helpful is to take a hairdryer and blow hot air into the bag before sealing it. The air passing through the heat coils of the dryer will act as a dehumidifier and will reduce moisture in the air that you are blowing into the bag. You can then seal the bag with the silica packets and you won't have to worry about moisture condensing on the component as the temp drops.
Frank
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 11-02-2002, 07:03 PM:
Frank has a very good idea. I am confident it'll be adequate in your area. But remember, the packets will eventually become useless unless they are dried out in a low-temperature oven or something like that on an occasional basis.
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 11-02-2002, 10:58 PM:
The only way a air tight bag would help is if they were evacuated to a vacum before sealing as airborne mositure inside the bag would condense as it is a macro climate inside the bag
Posted by Sam Hunter (Member # 1119) on 11-02-2002, 11:44 PM:
I would also be wary of pest as well as moisture.
Place whatever you are storing in somekind of sealed or partly sealed container and also maybe run a electric heater during the winter to help with the moisture. Keeping the enviroment as stable as possible will help condensation from forming.
------------------
Samual Hunter Sr.
KC5ZSL
Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 11-03-2002, 12:13 AM:
Frank suggested:
>The air passing through the heat coils of the dryer will act
>as a dehumidifier and will reduce moisture in the air that you
>are blowing into the bag.No it won't. When you heat air the relative humidity drops because just as the term implies, RH is a measure of how much moisture is present vs. how much can it hold and since hot air can hold more than cold air the RH drops. But as soon as it cools back down the RH will return to the level it was before since you really haven't removed any moisture; it's all still there.
Relative humidity, BTW, is what we feel and what causes condensation. The reason things seem drier in winter isn't because the RH outside is particularly low but because that same air heated up indoors is now capable of holding a lot more moisture and if you don't add any then the relative humidity will be low--simply because the air could hold more than it's got. So in that sense heating the air dries it out. But only as long as it stays heated!
Posted by Matthew Bailey (Member # 601) on 11-03-2002, 01:49 AM:
You could probably wrap thing up in sleeping bags or thick blankets.
Also you might use a space heater on low setting or wrap the equipment in an electric blanket. However,I have concerns about leaving heat producing stuff like that on unattended.
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-03-2002, 11:22 AM:
Hmmm, Steve....then I guess the reason we have had success was because of the bags of silica that we put in the garbage bags; the hair dryer wasn't really doing much of anything. Good to know. Next time around we can eliminate blow-drying everything. I suppose that idea would only be effective if we were using a dehumidifier to put dehumidified air into the bags. Then again, if the silic disicant is keeping the equipment dry, then we don't need to worry about drying the air at all. Yet I would imagine that we should still be conscious of the humidity level on the day we pack everything up. Packing it on a day when it's 98% wouldn't be a good idea -- the silica bags would have to absorb that much more moisture. And Paul's right -- those bags do become ineffective (I think ours said after 6 months). But they can be rejuvinated -- just follow the instructions. Frank
Posted by John Anastasio (Member # 607) on 11-03-2002, 05:29 PM:
You can get big bags of dessicant at any crafts store. They use the stuff to make dried flowers.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-03-2002, 09:35 PM:
Ah, you guys are all wasting your time argueing about all this temperature and humidity stuff. .....Josh, just store it all in your parents living room! There, problem solved in a far simpler way....
Mark
Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 11-03-2002, 09:50 PM:
Well, if the silica is sealed in with the item, then it does its job absorbing the moisture. It doesn't need to be replaced or regenerated (by heating in an electric oven or toaster oven--gas ovens being rather humid from the moisture generated by the burning gas) unless the seal is broken.As long as we're on the topic of storage, I had a weird thing happen when I was little. My brother and I had a model train layout on a table platform. After some reworking we both had identical power Tyco packs. These were the simple transformer / rectifier / rheostat types (no transistors). We stored the layout out in the unheated garage for the winter and when we brought it back in both power packs were dead. Dead in the sense that they put out no power and if I put my ear up to them I could not hear the transformer hum that I was used to. At that age I had no meters so I couldn't prove that the primaries were open but that would be the assumption, sans hum (I don't think there was a power switch, just a polarity switch for direction on the DC side). The best guess I can make is that both had transformers that were somehow wound too tightly and that contraction in the cold broke the fine primary windings somewhere. Just odd that it happened to both.
I also recall that at the time that I knew there ought to be a bridge rectifier in there (or at least two diodes if a center-tapped arrangement) and not finding any when I explored the insides. But it musta been there and I have no way of knowing now what I did or did not know about what things looked like back then.
I still have an old German Märklin unit for AC trains which is actually a variable transformer. It saved some shows at a theatre when their exciter supply died!
Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 11-03-2002, 10:21 PM:
Mark, I would, but my dad is already bitching about the MII deck sitting next to the couch. He keeps stubbing his toes Josh
Posted by John Anastasio (Member # 607) on 11-04-2002, 06:30 AM:
Just stick it in the window....everyone will think it's an air conditioner.
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 11-04-2002, 02:26 PM:
Moisture/condensation is the greatest risk. Similar concerns and solutions as for storing classic automobiles during the winter:
here
here
here ------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion