Battle of the Tstats! R vs J

Thanks SImplex but the OP has already stated they are going to buy a better thermostat.

BTW...knitting is an expensive hobby too. Have you SEEN the price of some of those skeins of wool???

:P And yes I am being serious about the knitting thing

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Originally Posted by SquamishSerpents

Thanks SImplex but the OP has already stated they are going to buy a better thermostat.

BTW...knitting is an expensive hobby too. Have you SEEN the price of some of those skeins of wool???

:P And yes I am being serious about the knitting thing

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I understand that. But it bothers me that people jump the gun like this. A zoomed tstat. Seriously? For a rack of breeding animals.

Money doesnt grow on trees I know that. And to be fair, this doesnt annoy me even as much as those individuals whom have unlimited funds who decide on a whim one day to get into the hobby, with a few quad morphs and modest ars caging room controlled by 4 herp 4s but yet cant get there humidity right, or figure out why their 20bps worth 30k wont eat. (long story) but i digress...

If you cant do it right, it shouldn't be done... Right doesn't have to be fancy or pretty. In no means. But it has to be right by the animals.

To the op. Decide what you want to do. And do it. No one is going to stop you. But this hobby at times feels a lil like playing god. We are indirectly creating life. Thats a big thing!

Bills and housing comes first.. Dont get me wrong...
And maybe ive got my priorities wrong but ive put off paying bills for a week or so, so i could afford to feed my bps, who are housed in a room i rented before for 400 bucks a month.. So they in no way pay for themselves..

Imho you sound like your doing this just for the money.. Well you will soon find out. A pastel to normal clutch.. Is gonna cost you money... Alot of money..

The above mentioned price breakdown is very conservative as far as im concerned, your going to spend alot of money before u see a dime returned.. ALOT.

You may have got into this on the cheap, but that lucky horse shoe wont last forever. Can you afford your first vet visit? What about as mentioned when ur temps spike and u lose ur clutch?
Can u afford the time it takes to start 8 new babies on feed?? Btw assist fed one hatchling this year for 2 months.. Finally took his first live asf this week.

There is a lot of variables..and cost you NEVER think of. Trust me cause I was in your shoes.

On the cheap is not always the best way to go.

I'm sorry, but I would never use an analog thermostat to control a ball python egg incubator. Their eggs are TOO SENSITIVE. Other species can withstand more fluctuation, but not ball pythons. You go this route, and the worst that can happen isn't that you lose them....it's that they hatch, and they're all one-eyed, kinked, and fused.

You can get away with using analog thermostats to control heat in a rack, especially if you use a particulate bedding like cypress mulch, but you really need a good proportional thermostat for your incubator.

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Originally Posted by kitedemon

Just out of curiosity why chose a VE over a herpstat? I have constantly wondered this, if someone else had released the VE200 and not RB it would likely be a flop. Of all the major bands (herpstat, ecozone, herp keeper, helix ,VE) it has the fewest features of all but the helix, which as near as I can tell is a copy of. The base model has no alarms, no night drop, no cooling, is pulse proportional. I actually don't get it, the price of the herpstat is the same and for 25$ more you can get a HS1 which has two more safety features (relay and low temp shut down). What is so attractive about the VE? Honest question I simply do not get it.

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So your saying i should get a herpstat rather then a ve - 200 ? i was just going off of another thread i read that was saying how good the ve was ok so now ill look into herpstat and the herpstat 1 can be the second one i buy because i do eventualy want 2 of these one fore the rack and one for the incubator but for now i can only afford one so ill switch it between the two like i said earlier and by next season i should have no problem getting another one. So would anyone suggest one they think is better then herpstat thats around 100 130 area price wise?

Like squamish said simplex im going to buy a proportional thermostat for my incubator so if you would like to continue ranting about how people cheap out start your own thread because that no longer applies here. Thank you

Herpstat. Nuff' said..........

jfaria1891 actually I was just curious why. I actually don't understand what is the hype about the VE series. It reads like the Helix unit almost exactly which is unchanged since the early 80s the ve updated the box and menu and re-released it. I was just wondering why it is so popular. To my mind it is a very sad that a community leader would be involved in a product that takes a 30 year backward step. Every unit after the helix, advanced the features of a reptile t-stat (truly designed for the task at hand) the helix is a great unit but is not much more than an industrial proportional controller (Honeywell makes a number). The ones designed after the helix, customized a basic unit specifically for keeping herps, adding things like, lighting cycles, temp changes both seasonal and daily alerts, heating cooling and mist controls, added safety systems, and data logging ect. Each of the N American upped the anti with each new release. The herpstat offers the most sophisticated safety system on the market and a good selection of features common the the competitors then along comes the VE and it has no features, nothing added from units in the past 30 years, and it is really popular. It just baffles me, I have had my hands on two, one was not working properly. (failed to hold settings after losing power) It feels good well thought out menu but still it seems like a Helix. There is nothing wrong with Helix they have a track record that is amazing 30 years basically unchanged.

I feel like I am missing something!

I want an alarm, I want a soft start heat. I want to protect my animals against a probe being pulled loose. I really want a manual that is complete!!! (full specs would be nice... How accurate is the probe... It is +/- 0.9ºF but it took me 3 emails and posting that question on an open forum to get that answer.) I have a number of herpstats I felt when I bought them they offered the best range of features at the best price (still do, the ecozone and herpkeeper have a web interface and text/email alerts but are quite costly.) The menu is not something that matters much I change the settings on my thermostats once in 2 years, this for me is not a selling point, and that is stacks well all but one herpstat does (the intro is flush mount) the ecozone and the herpkeeper are too. The only non stackable unit on the market today is the helix and one herpstat. Hardly a selling point.


The only selling point is Rich at RB. It is not like Dion (herpstat) has poor service, actually the best service I have ever had came from him, that includes when I was the consultant for a 6 million dollar deal.