Finally up and running!

Finally got my stuff together. I'm currently running the thermostat and heat pad in the empty enclosure just to test the probe/thermometers, etc and get a feel for where I need to set things.

The thermostat is a herpstat. I currently have it set to 87.0F. The probe reads 87.1F and seems to spend a lot of time at 0% and coming on a little bit to warm it about 0.4F above 87.0...

The thermometer reads 85.5F

Temp gun reads 86.1F

The thermostat probe is glue-gunned very securely inside the enclosure (I did read into thermostat placement, risks, and reasons... This wasn't a 'didn't know better' decision. There will be a backup outside of the enclosure, and the probe inside the enclosure was secured as if it was my own face that was going to be lying on it).

So I understand that there's going to be some variance between temperature readings from different probes on different equipment, so do I trust the herpstat probe more than the temp gun?

The enclosure is not set up as it will be (no substrate, hides, etc). I'm just trying to get a feel for my equipment with an arbitrary temperature, first.

Sort of answered my own question... + -1.8F margin of error on the temp gun, would put it about 0.1F below the herpstat, which I think correlates to the herpstat's margin of error perfectly if my memory is accurate.

Wont let me edit original post?

It's great that you're putting so much thought and effort into this, but I'm confused. What's the point of having your main tstat probe inside the enclosure and your backup outside of the enclosure?

The place I live in is not the most temperature-stable environment (it's not cold or anything though), and gets quite a bit of sunlight through parts of the day.

When the thermostat is on the outside, it works on a ratio premise (ie. when the thermostat is at 96, the enclosure should be at 90), but that seems to be only so effective when the ambient room temperature fluctuates, and unintended heat sources may be present during parts of the day.

So, for me, it seemed more reliable to have the probe inside, taking the reading from where it actually mattered. A cheaper back-up probe on the outside just means that even if the snake did somehow manage to dislodge the probe, at least the heat pad will only get so hot.