another....temp question

[ivylea77]

Ok...I have a 41qt sterilite container. On the hot side I have flexwatt hooked to a Johnson stat. It set on 102. This translates (usually) to a floor temp of 91-92. My hide which is a ceramic pot seems to be hotter usually 4-5* No big deal. My cool side seems to stay between 82-84 and ambient 86-88. SOmetime however in the afternoon my temps spike. When I get home the max temps in my hide reads 105-109*. I drilled vent holes in the hot hide ...didn't work, I tried a coconut shell, didn't seem to hold the heat. I even noticed my cool side spiked to 91*. What could cause the temps swings with a thermostat? I have my probe duct tape right to the flexwatt as well. Any help...greatly appreciated.

[Adam_Wysocki]

I hate to say it, but I had a similar experience when I tested out Ranco and Johnson thermostats on my racks. I monitored 3 different racks for 2 weeks, one setup with a Ranco, one with a Johnson, and one with a Helix (as a control) and noticed temps swings of as much as 8 degrees on the Ranco and Johnson racks while the Helix rack remained accurate to within 1 degree. Unfortunately, I found no way to control the temperature swings that I saw and decided to stick with Helix thermostats. In almost 10 years, I've never had a problem with them.

Hope you have better luck than I did!

-adam

[ivylea77]

Thanks...I moved my setup to a different part of the room hoping that the pm sun might have affected the temps. I try this for another day or so to see what happens. If not maybe Matt will be so kind as to exchange my Johnson's for a helix.

[justcage]

I hate to say it, but I had a similar experience when I tested out Ranco and Johnson thermostats on my racks. I monitored 3 different racks for 2 weeks, one setup with a Ranco, one with a Johnson, and one with a Helix (as a control) and noticed temps swings of as much as 8 degrees on the Ranco and Johnson racks while the Helix rack remained accurate to within 1 degree. Unfortunately, I found no way to control the temperature swings that I saw and decided to stick with Helix thermostats. In almost 10 years, I've never had a problem with them.

Hope you have better luck than I did!

-adam

Come on Adam your compairing apples to oranges here man.. Of course a proportional thermostat is going to be more accurate then an analog unit and a corvette will go faster than a pinto too! I have way to many customer complaints with the Helix units to ever sale them again, I dont want my customers to get anything from me that is not up to par unlike some companies Not working right out of the box, not pulsing.. things of that nature.. A herpstat is a far superior unit compaired to the Helix units.. As far as Johnson controls and Rancos, they are analog and will keep temps within one degree of what the setpoint is set at(unless you have the differntial set to 8). The only way I have seen them(or any thermostat) swing that far is when the probe was not placed correctly.. I have tested, took apart and fried every unit on the market and would trust a Johnson Controls over a Helix anyday of the week..

[justcage]

Ok...I have a 41qt sterilite container. On the hot side I have flexwatt hooked to a Johnson stat. It set on 102. This translates (usually) to a floor temp of 91-92. My hide which is a ceramic pot seems to be hotter usually 4-5* No big deal. My cool side seems to stay between 82-84 and ambient 86-88. SOmetime however in the afternoon my temps spike. When I get home the max temps in my hide reads 105-109*. I drilled vent holes in the hot hide ...didn't work, I tried a coconut shell, didn't seem to hold the heat. I even noticed my cool side spiked to 91*. What could cause the temps swings with a thermostat? I have my probe duct tape right to the flexwatt as well. Any help...greatly appreciated.

Your thermostat is working perfectly.. You have to have the probe in the area you want it to read the temps at.. The temps will be higher in the hides as it creates a source of thermal mass therefore raising the temps.. You will have to put the probe inside the hide if you want your temps to be adjusted based on the hide temps.. The thermostat will only read from where the probe is placed.. I woudl putthe probe in the hide and see what happens then.. Heating is something you have to fool around with when your not using a rack system Sucks, but true..lol

[Karma]

Where is the correct place to set the probe?

[justcage]

Where is the correct place to set the probe?

That depends on your application.. If your using flexwatt and tub or cage then the best place is to have it directly on the flexwatt.. IN a rack the best place is in a control tub.. You just need to have the probe where you want the temp reading to be taken from..

[Adam_Wysocki]

Come on Adam your compairing apples to oranges here man.. Of course a proportional thermostat is going to be more accurate then an analog unit and a corvette will go faster than a pinto too! I have way to many customer complaints with the Helix units to ever sale them again, I dont want my customers to get anything from me that is not up to par unlike some companies Not working right out of the box, not pulsing.. things of that nature.. A herpstat is a far superior unit compaired to the Helix units.. As far as Johnson controls and Rancos, they are analog and will keep temps within one degree of what the setpoint is set at(unless you have the differntial set to 8). The only way I have seen them(or any thermostat) swing that far is when the probe was not placed correctly.. I have tested, took apart and fried every unit on the market and would trust a Johnson Controls over a Helix anyday of the week..

Ok, a couple of points if you'd really like to go here ...

My set points were all at one degree and I saw the temp swings that I saw. After 10 years of using thermostats to heat cages, I'm pretty sure that I know what I'm doing.

Helix's not working? Are you kidding me? I'm running a dozen in my shop, 1/2 of which are probably between 5 and 10 years old and I've never had a problem with one of them. Over at Ralph Davis' place he's got to be running like 40 or 50 of them easy and he just keeps buying more. I don't even want to go into how many are running over at Pete Kahls, VPI, The SnakeKeeper ... these guys are all the biggest ball python breeders in the world and they spare no expense when it comes to their million dollar ball python collections and they are ALL running Helix controls. Why do you think that is? Because they don't know about Herpstat yet? ... LOL ... doubt it.

You know I know where you're coming from Matt because we've had this conversation before. It sucks to be the guy that has to sell Helix's ... they make it very hard for their resellers to make the money that they can make on other units. I mean, I can get raw Ranco controls for $35 at my local electric supply house and sell them the next day for $70 ... Helix's best price is $98 for a retail price of $129.99 .... With a 100% profit on a Ranco and a 30% profit on a Helix, if I was selling thermostats, I would say that Helix's stink too! Think about that ... if you spend $1000 on Ranco's and sell them the next day, you make $1000 pure profit ... spend $1000 on helix units and sell them the next day and you make $300 of profit ... LOL.

But hey, I'm just sharing information ... I'm not selling anything ... I still have the Ranco and Johnson in my supply closet, so if anyone would like to come down and see the experiment for themselves I'd be happy to show the same thing happen again.

Should I go through my old emails and post up what you really had to say about Helix controls Matt? The thing that you said you'd deny if it got out? ... LOL

-adam

[kavmon]

for the record i use both helix and herpstats, i have multiples of each. i did have a failure with the herpstat! it was repaired promptly by dion and shipped back but none the less it was a failure. i emailed and called several different breeders with at least 10+ years of expierence and asked them about helix, not one of them reported a problem. i will buy helix from now on, that's my choice.


vaughn

[Adam_Wysocki]

LOL ... and I got a negative reputation point for my first post on this thread at 5:02 pm as well! ... Wonder who that came from?

How could anyone give me negative rep points for posting my experiences?



-adam