Harvest right freeze dryer : Just say no

Another update in the Harvest right saga 6-12-22

After opening the machine and finding the vacuum sensor half way off of the terminal, I was supremely confident that I had found the intermittent vacuum loss that was shutting down operation. Seeing how the problem cured simply by restarting the vacuum cycle, it red flagged as a bad connection.

I pushed the sensor on and felt a positive click when it went home. On the inside I smiled, maybe even smirked a little

But to no avail; after putting 16 screws back in and testing, I experienced a gross vacuum failure that will not cure. (With as much work as this machine needs you think that they would provide a quick access panel) Even in the test mode the vacumm will not pull below 1300 MT

Seeing how the top end of the working pressure is 500 MT you would think a massive leak is indicated, yet nothing shows. I have a vacuum leak detector that I use for work and I can detect nothing.

So now it is time to go back to the Tech girls at support and see what they come up with

I will post more when it happes

Original Update posted 6-5-22: An update on my Harvest right freeze dryer…. It is a little over a year old now and this is the second time that it is down. The first time it was down it was down for about 10 weeks. Now I am on the third week of being down and the goods I purchased to freeze dry are rotting.

I have support helping me out, (Paid because I am out of warranty) but I am the technician. I send them info and log files and then I have to take the machine apart myself and test or replace parts. I did not sign up for that and if I knew that was the program, I would not have purchased it.

I have managed to freeze dry a goodly amount of stuff, but for the money I have invested in it, I frankly expected better reliability. Were it my car and it had this much down time, it would be on the sales lot. My main problem is that this is my busy season when I make the majority of my money for the year. I am out a lot of nights until 7:00 busting my ass in the Florida heat.

Dinner, online shopping, work orders etc, I am exhausted and don’t have time or energy left to do tech work for Harvest right. Because of that, the diagnosis process really drags on. I am now having a loss of vacuum problem that is not seals , pump, etc. (I earlier upgraded to the $750.00 premier pump) or anything else that seems simple.

I am going to go through the process one more time and will take it apart and try to fix it. Other than expected maintenance it will be my last try. The next break down and it will be on the market for sale.

When the machine works it works well, but frankly I don’t think that Harvest right has a product fully ready for the home market. Unless you plan on being the main tech that repairs the machine whenever it breaks down I would not recommend it. I know that if I had the same issue with my washer, dryer, stove refrigerator , dishwasher etc. I think I would just take up living in a cabin in the woods.

Harvest right freeze dryer review

This will be an ongoing review

I have a Harvest right freeze dryer that is less than 1 year old. When it worked it was great, but unfortunately it has been out of commission for almost 1 month. This is an expensive machine and right now it is a large paperweight taking up space in my utility room. I contacted tech support and after emailing log files via USB drive. I was mailed a new CPU board even though it was a touchscreen issue that I was having. Between emails, phone calls and weekend closure it was a couple of weeks before I had the board in hand. I installed the board but needed a code to make it work and had to wait through the weekend to get it from Harvestright. Well, it didn’t work. I still had the touch screen issue and the machine crapped out again after 1 run. More time elapsed between emails, weekends and shipping. Now I am a month in and I found out that the touchscreen I needed had not been in stock but now I would have it shipped to me. I installed it along with another new CPU and guess what? It doesn’t work. Now it is the weekend and I have to wait again to talk to a tech. I am a very busy man and really have better things to do than wait and work on my freeze dryer. I will post more as it transpires.

Update 1 : I now have the machine running a cycle. You have to tap very hard on the touch screen to calibrate it and while I was smacking it, it suddenly reloaded and went to the proper screen and allowed a cycle to run. We shall see