Cannon Safe SGD57 Silica Gel Dehumidifier

When I bought a gun safe, I thought I would give this product a try, even though the reviews were mixed. Now that I've had it for over a month, I really don't think it is worth the effort. I can recharge it by putting it in the oven, then place it in my safe after it cools off. The silica gel granules then turn from blue to pink within a couple of days. I live in Houston where the humidity can get high, but we've had lower humidity over the past month because of the cold temperatures. During the summer months, when the humidity is 90%, there is no way for this dehumidifier to keep up. I would have to buy several of these dehumidifiers so that I can continuously have one or more recharging and then swap them out daily.

I have been using silica gel for decades, mostly in metal o-ring sealed containers containing rarely used machine tools where it can take years to saturate the dryer. I bought this product in the last year because I had a reloading press to protect from rust.I have gone through the process of unpacking gel beads from bags, baking in a toaster oven, and repacking the beads, for years. The beads bounce around and get everywhere. It gets tiring.This product is convenient as there is no unpack/repack handling to bake it out. The height is lower than another equivalent unit and this allows it to be loaded in a toaster oven without turning it on its side. The saturated weight of the unit is about 960 grams. Baked in a convection toaster oven at 300 degrees F for about 10 hours (300F is the maximum temp reccomended for silica gel), the weight of the unit drops to a little below 860 grams and then there are diminishing returns for more time in the oven. Thats 10 hours, not 3 hours.If the environment the unit is in has more than 100 grams of water in it, you need another dryer solution, likely one that dumps the water outside.The snap-in window is real mica that can take the heat of baking. It tends to pop out in shipping and you have to repack the beads. The fact that all the beads have the blue to pink indicator is important. You can shake the can, while holding the window in, and see the density of blue beads left. They turn pink from the outside going in.The best situation for use is an o-ring sealed metal can like an ammo box. With no air exchange the enclosure will be kept dry for years with occaisional opening. Heavy trash bags or zip-lock bags can produce a reasonably isolated environment, but moisture diffuses through the plastic. Still, it can keep stuff from rusting without such sealed enclosures. I use a heavy trash bag pulled over a reloading press and have one of these cans under the press mount. This is in an unheated, but well insulated, shop environment. I bake it out every month or so.Those of you who have rust spots that appear on your unit have a condensing armosphere that can’t be addressed with a small dryer meant for a sealed enclosure. Get a powered dehumidifier that can remove gallons of water and arrange that the water discharge line dumps outside. Does your gun safe have a gasket on the door?It is important that the toaster oven used for baking units out is a convection model that circulates air inside the oven. It is a good idea to preheat the oven before putting the units in to avoid too high a temperature on the can during warm up. There are mechanically timed toaster ovens, with convection fans, available for which the timer can be set to stay on for a convenient overnight bake.Silica gel can trap vapors other than water and these can produce a smell during the first part of the bake.Lastly, it might save you some money to search amazon for the same unit, unbranded, selling for a lower price.

The product description is not very detailed, so I will provide some additional information. The canister is perforated steel, round, and measures 4 inches high by 5 1/4 inches in diameter. The bottom of the canister is labeled "Hydrosorbent Silica Gel Dehumidifier 750 Grams Silica Gel", "protects 57 cubic feet / 1614 litres", and contains the reactivating instructions (325 F for at least 3 hours). Note that it ships in it's own packaging, which is a rather thin cardboard box. Select "this will be a gift" during checkout and it will ship inside another box with padding. I hope you find this additional information helpful.

Item arrived in box with other items and I could immediately hear rumbling in the box like something was broken. Opened box to see top had popped off of humidifier and the gel beads had fallen out and the secondary catch bag holding everything in place also had developed a hole in it much of the gel beads had fallen out and into the item box and larger shipping box. I managed to salvage most of the beads and put back in canaster but now it has much less than originally shipped with which will detract from the overall time between recharges. Not worth sending back but hoping can get more beads to refill container and get best available dehumidifying time.

I live in Seattle, and these are GREAT! They make a noticeable difference in my car - far less to no condensation on windows, so I know it is working. Super easy to cook out the moisture, then return to car. Way more economical and env. friendly then buying and utilizing the pellets or whatever, over and over, that turn to water, then you have to catch the water then toss it ou, and this system will not work for a car, but this product is perfect! My car leaks, so I use the big one, even though it is recommended to use the smaller size for the size of my car, but it is too wet up here, so the big one is best for my purposes.

I'd give it zero stars if I could. Doesn't recharge after 3 hours at high temp. Color doesn't change back after 1 or 2 recharges. Rusts after a few months even at low humidity levels. SIlica was loose in bag. Thin cheap metal that rusts. You'd think they would use something that doesn't rust since it's intent is to collect moisture. Waste of money. Buy a goldenrod instead like I had to resort to after all.

This is not good for a standalone dehumidifier in the safe. I went just about mad trying to keep up with regenerating the sylica every other day in the relatively mild humidity of California. I like it OK as a complimentary unit along side other more reliable devices. But I will not be buying it again and I am seriously considering "gifting" it away at this point because it is rather large and my weekly recharging of a unit that I am not convinced is helping very much is getting rather old. Yeah, I need to recharge it weekly even with multiple other reliable units in my safe.

We bought this based on all the excellent reviews. When we received ours we placed it in our safe and after a couple months it had lots of rust spots on the outside. The crystals were all still blue just like when we got it. Did we just get a defective unit? We are in California so there is very little humidity here. Safe has only documents in it.

Had these for six months and worked well. However, no matter how long I now leave it in the oven at the stated temperature, the beads change from blue to pink (needs to be recharged again) before the cans are cool enough to handle. Contacted the manufacturer who said they were faulty and were happy to replace, but won’t ship outside of the USA. Don’t seem to be able to contact the Amazon seller either despite them having a 12 month warranty. Wasted money from my point of view.

Product came with silica already pink (hydrated). Tried to dehumidify/recharge the silica in the oven as directed. It took over 6 hours to turn the silica blue again. Put is in my sealed gun safe and the silica was all pink again by the next day. I did the recharging 2 more times and same result. I have used other silica dehumidifiers in my safe and they last for months before needing recharging. Not this one for me.