100% back heated stack

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Originally Posted by sho220

the beyond section...that's where they keep the coffee mugs...:D

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gotta love family guy :D

Thanks for sharing! I really want to switch to back heat for that same reason--I much prefer using a substrate other than paper. My only issue is getting a dedicated space to be able to heat.

Awesome set up!
Love how organized it looks.

Thanks for sharing!:gj:

I recently built a rack out of plywood that I painted and sealed. It is a vertical stack that is 6 foot tall with 11 tubs. It uses back heat with flexwatt that was a little too long so that I could run some under the bottom tub. I am running into the same problem that you spoke of about the temperatures varying from shelf to shelf. Unfortunately the top tub is 91 degrees and the 3rd one from the bottom is 75. I'm currently trying all sorts of ways to fix this with insulation board on the side and drilling extra holes near the top to help cool off the top few tubs. If you have any suggestions to fix that please let me know.

I saw the rack that you build and am very impressed. I will build another rack soon and use a design much like yours. My question to you is how did you attach the vertical boards between the tubs. Did you just screw from the top board into the side of the divider? or did you use some kind of bracket. Also about how much did all of the melamine cost for this?
Thank you,
Colby

I think the biggest thing that would help is moving air around the room, get a fan in there so you don't just have heat rising and staying up there.

I make my rows by cutting out the bottom piece, screw the sides/back/supports to the bottom, wire the heat tape and put it in, leaving enough wire to make it to the next row. Then I build the next row the same way, with a hole in the bottom for the wires from the heat tape below to come up. I fish the wires through the hole and glue the row on top of the bottom row, I use liquid nails for this. I wire the flexwatt together, go onto the next row, repeat for as many rows as I need. The top row gets a cord to plug in the thermostat out the back. Then screw a top on and I'm done.

I think melamine is 37 bucks a sheet now by me. I think when I built my first rack it was only 25 bucks a sheet. I really don't know how many sheets it took, I didn't build them all at the same time. If I had to guess Id say somewhere around 7 sheets for all of it.

I would like to see more pics.
What size heat tape are you using?

3 inch heat tape on all of it, ill see if i can grab some more pics after work.

Side
http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9d8f0119.jpg

Back, Power for heat tape and probes for thermostats
http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0f1a4c78.jpg

Back heat
http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/...ps30fa53b8.jpg

Heat tape connection, solder with liquid electrical tape
http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/...psaf2a8e27.jpg

Supports
http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/...ps13fd17c5.jpg

Back of my thermostat mount
http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/...psbf07ea65.jpg

That's an awesome setup!
Thanks for posting the extra pics.

Very nice! The extra pics were a great idea. This type of setup would work in our space much better than a vertically oriented one