I have a small Canon camera I bought 5 years ago. It still works great and takes good photos.

A few months ago it wouldn’t turn on. Changed batteries, still no go. After some experimentation I realized it was the humidity – I take out the batteries and the memory card and let it dry out in an air conditioned room, or a slightly warm oven (heat turned off). If I’m staying in a non-AC room I keep it in a tupperware-type container.

What is annoying is that when I want to use the thing I can’t be sure if it’ll be working or if it’ll need to dry out. I’m guessing I need to get some silica packs. For pills and such I use the ones that are ok for consumables (they come with vitamins etc) but I guess I need some sort of reusable industrial-strength ones that won’t fall apart. Is it possible to buy such things, or should I just go to camera shops and ask if they have extras to spare?

I figure there must be other people having the same equipment problems.

Silica Gel can help. Not always but it works OK for me but I live in an air con "bubble" if you will.

Its normally the moving from an air conditioned space to a non air condition space with high humidity in a short space of time that does it, it can take a while for the condensation to disappear. I dont know if you have tried this but what I normally do is leave the camera in the padded carrying bag which is also a good insulator, and open the lid and let the camera acclimatise slowly that way it does not fog up. Just a thought!

Humidity will ruin your camera lenses a lot faster than the camera innards, usually fungus on the glass inside the lens.

After some heartbreaking experiences with equipment, now when not in use, I keep all my camera equipment in ziplock plastic bags with silica gel and then the ziploc bags inside the tupperware.

When the silica gel turns blue it's saturated with moisture and you have to bake it in the oven a bit to dry it out. I buy silica gel in bulk from US and put it in socks with my equipment. Those little paper packages of silica gel that come with the newly purchased equipment becomes quickly saturated.

Buy a dry box, should be available in any camera/equipment stores.

You should be able to purchase larger amounts of silica gel from any laboratory supplier

Some websites for silica gel in Thailand.

http://www.dud-d.com/product1.htm

http://www.powerdry.co.th/index_en.php