A humidity harvester, commonly called a moisture vaporator, represented a fairly basic piece of technology employed for the purpose of collecting atmospheric water. These devices were typically situated on the ground and saw use on planets such as Tatooine.
Vaporators served as crucial tools, enabling colonists to eke out an existence within severe desert environments by extracting water from the encompassing atmosphere.
These machines generally featured one or more tall, slender, cooled pipes. As warm, moisture-laden air encountered the intensely cold pipes, the moisture would instantly condense, forming pure water droplets that traveled down the pipes into subterranean storage units.
With proper upkeep, a moisture vaporator could typically gather adequate water to sustain three average Humans, even in arid locales such as Tatooine and Geonosis; the device could harvest water from air with a moisture level as low as 1.3%. Due to the sensitive construction of these machines, consistent maintenance was generally a necessity.
Patch-in droids were often used in conjunction with the vaporators. These droids translated the binary language used by the vaporators, making the information accessible to human operators.
Farmers often referred to the damp, shaded area beneath the vaporator, a common habitat for vaporator mushrooms, as the mushroom patch.
During the period of the Jedi Civil War, the Czerka Corporation manufactured vaporators for utilization in their drier settlements, such as Anchorhead located on Tatooine. [Revan](/article/revan-legends], a former Sith Lord, acquired a number of these units as part of an agreement reached with a local Tusken Raiders tribe.
The Republic Army made use of vaporators during the Clone Wars as a method to lessen the quantity of drinkable water requiring transportation via transports.
The Tatooine Moisture Farm Collective was established with the purpose of safeguarding the planet's water resources. Working in conjunction with the Bestine Chamber of Commerce, they would occasionally hire hunters to eliminate the wild creatures responsible for damaging the vaporators.
One moisture farm on Tatooine, known as the Lars homestead, possessed a total of 63 GX-8 water vaporators on its grounds.
Following the completion of filming for A New Hope, the vaporators located outside the Lars homestead were left in place and continue to be a destination for tourists visiting the Tunisian desert.