I bought from Scott Shilala & barely escaped with my life! Awesome BOTL & awesome product.
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I have a Puckifier, some Humi-Care crystal gel, some Ice brand crystals that are similar to the Humi-Care ones, and some of Scott Shilala's HCM beads. Scott's stuff requires less intervention once you get them adjusted to your desired RH.

:-)
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I use cigarmony.

I don't know if there is a great difference in product between the vendors (I have only use heartfelt and cigarmony) and service from all three seems to be stellar.

I make my choice based on what else I need to purchase with the beads - cuts down on shipping cost per item.

Either way you will be not disappointed.
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I've used beads from a few vendors. My best sucess is from Scott (Shilala). They are rock solid, need littler intervention, and support a great Botl.
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Seems to me you cannot go wrong with either one. I don't know if beads get tired, but I am about to replace my tubes with a puck(cigarmony) I just use a bag-o-beads in my coolerdors.
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I use Heartfelt. Great customer service and they have worked out great.
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I have order from Heartfelt various times. Extremely fast shipping and great product.
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One more vote for Heartfelt. I love 'em.

But, also props to Shilala, he was very professional in my PM's with him.
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I have purchased both BargainHumidors' and Heartfelt's beads. Based entirely on physical appearance and with no credible testing I prefer the beads from Bargainhumidors.

A larger percentage of the BH beads turn translucent after my indirect recharge method; whereas the Heartfelt beads seem to have a higher percentage remain opaque. To me this observed change indicates the BH beads absorb more/better. Some of the heartfelt beads do turn transparent like the BH beads, just a much lower percentage; perhaps the Heartfelt beads do better with direct addition of water.

(Then of course there is also the factor that BH beads are $17 a pound and Heartfelt are $31 a pound)

I haven't used Shilala's beads; if they are competitively priced to BH I might give them a try in the future..
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I use Heartfelt beads in the desktop and Shilala beads in the Vino. They both work well, and customer service was great with both of them. You really can't go wrong either way.
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I will use Heartfelt until I have a reason to go elsewhere, which would mean they stopped their lightning shipping and great customer service.

I have never had any problems with their service or product, which means they have a customer for life.
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I use Scott's beads and am very happy! All three are class acts in my book - they just get it, customer service and great products!
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All beads are definitely not created equally. Some (RH Beads & Heartfelt's beads) perform better (more efficiently) in the RH range that we store our cigars (60-70% range) where as others perform better outside of that range (see "hysteresis curve").

It should be noted that the RH Beads & Heartfelt beads cost nearly 2x as much as other beads as well. ("You get what you pay for" applies here)

I hope this helps

~Mark

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Thanks to everyone for the kind words of support. :-)
I love you guys!!! :-)
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I can't speak for anyone else's beads, but Shilala's beads keep my cooler and humi at a rock solid 65%.
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same here.
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If people want to pay $31 instead of $17 to help out a BOTL, fine.. Viper and Shilala do go out of their way to help the community so it is the community's prerogative to return the favor. These two guys are class acts.

Throwing around technical mumbo jumbo such as "hysteresis curve" will fool only some of the people in the asylum.. There have been great discussions on beads over the years. On cigarfamily there was a thread in which "CigarNV" stated the following (3 odd years ago):
While I am not recommending using the ($15/7 pounds at PetSmart) ExquisiCat Pearls, rather an inexpensive commercial cigar product; what CigarNV stated convinces me that hysteresis curves are moot.. Spend the extra twenty bucks to put cigars in your humi; bead performance doesn't really matter. *If* a commercial bead supplier ever provides empirical data demonstrating their superior performance compared to the less costly commercial bead suppliers, a full humi is still more important for keeping the environment stable.

I have never read disparaging remarks from Scott or Viper about the competition. They compete with the other guys by participating in the forums and by providing excellent service. On the other hand we have, "Perform better outside 60% - 70%" and "You get what you pay for"?:-) I would ask for evidence to support the implication that BH's and/or CH's beads don't perform as well in lieu of a drive by implication. It is worth noting that the $16 CH beads come with a lifetime guarantee. What kind of guarantee do "RH Beads" carry?

Perhaps I am incompetent/careless enough with my cigar storage that I can't discern that my BH beads aren't performing as well as my Heartfelt beads. I have a pound of each in 2 identical coolers. I would appreciate someone letting me know what should I be looking for to indicate the inferior nature of BH beads..

Dave, are you still using BH beads to regulate/buffer your truly priceless cigar collection? Perhaps you should switch to RH beads...
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I apologize if my post came across as "disparaging" the competition, that was not the intent at all.

Not only have I have been on the boards for years and participate as much, if not more, than any other retailer, I have been a BH customer for quite some time. I have spoken to Motek of BH at the RTDAs and he himself references the hysteresis curve.

All I meant was that there is a difference in the quality of the beads which is why there is a cost difference.
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OK, so now you folks have gotten me confused. :-) I tried to understand the hysteresis curve as mentioned above, and assuming your talking about "matric potential hysteresis". My understanding is it shows errors or varience in the potential water content, IE: saturation could be between x% and y% making it hard to measure volumetric water content.

So how does the inability to accurately measure the water content in the beads relate to their abilty to maintain a specific RH?

I wish you hadn't brought this up, I now have more questions than I need about beads. I was happy just knowing they worked. :-)

~Vitis
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Hi Vitis,
The simple answer is "it doesn't matter". I don't have to measure the water content in the beads at a specific RH%age. It's only indirectly relevant.
HCM beads work on the principle of equilibrium.
Equilibrium is simply a balance. It's the balance of water vapor in the air and water in the beads.
The beads bind a very large amount of water per volume. When the water vapor in the air drops, the beads give up a little bit of their water so that they can be balanced with the water content in the air.
When the vapor in the air rises, they gather vapor so that they can be balanced.
The reason the volume of water in the beads can't be accurately measured at any point is because it is ever-changing.
That's somewhat misleading because it's a fiercly dumbed down statement. The key word is "accurately". I can make a very good guess with simple math.
Equilibrium is far more complicated than I stated, as well.
I've done a lot of writing on the principle as related to my HCM beads. It's long, drawn out and boring.

When Mark made the comment that beads weren't equal, he was absolutely correct. I don't think he meant to be disparaging at all. It's fact. The "money's worth" comment is one of those subjective things.
If something does the job for you at half the price, that's awesome.
Thing is, what works for you and provides value may not work for me because of my environment, my humidor, or how often I visit said humidor.

I've done tests of dozens of types of humidification media.
The goal was to find where the "value" was.
Someone mentioned Kitty Litter.
In order to get the same humidity buffering benefit from Kitty Litter as from HCM beads, a person would need to use 9 to 14 pounds of kitty litter as compared to one pound of HCM beads.
At $40 for a pound of HCM beads and $28 for 14 pounds of Kitty Litter, it appears at first to be a "value".
Problem is, in order for the Kitty litter to work as well as one pound of HCM beads, it needs to be arranged so as to provide 910 square inches of surface area as opposed to 65 square inches of surface area for HCM beads. (I'm not willing to spare that kind of room in my winadors or humis.)
Even at that rate, the Kitty Litter is far slower reactively than are HCM beads. They can handle the buffering and provide the volume needed, but they take much longer to recover the conditioned space's RH%age.

All the different humidity control products have been designed from the designer's particular perspective. I have my own needs addressed by the HCM beads. Those are the things that I feel are important.
HCM beads tend to my needs the way I want them to be delivered.
I'm full aware that my perspective may be different than Mark's or Dave's as to what they want from their beads and how to achieve it.
That difference is exactly why I researched and developed HCM beads.
I wanted what I wanted the way I wanted it. :-)

None of the the three of us have ever been pitted against one another, and there's no need for that to ever happen.
I have the greatest respect for Mark and Dave both as businessmen and BOTL's. They more than deserve it. They're incredible people with exceptional personalities.
They also offer excellent products and provide top notch service.
If I weren't using my own beads, I'd definately be using theirs. :-)
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