The Accurite Therm/Hydgro Mod

[BeastMaster]

O.K. everybody, I knew there had to be a way to make this cheap Thermo/Hygro better. Then a friend of mine gave me the motivation to do it. I gave him my word that I would do it first thing in the morning, and I did, it just took a little while with the pictures and all.

Problem with this thing was that it had to be in the enclosure to measure both the temps (In/Out) and the humidity (%). My friend told me that this was no good and I should find a solution. So not only did I do that, but I decided to share this cheap mod with all of you as well.

Here is what you will need...Soldering Iron (15w) and solder, Razor blade, Two small screw drivers and a pair of small pliers (mine were Craftsman).


Start by taking the back case of of the Accurite.
Notice how the sensor at the end of the wire looks just like the on on the circuit board, they are even marked in/out.


So now, unsolder the wire from the circuit board.


Then unsolder the Hygrometer sensor and the other Temperature sensor.


Figure out what lengths of wire you will need to run and cut the original wire to the appropriate lengths. Strip about 1/8" of wire covering off and solder the section with the original sensor back to the out on the circuit board. In my previous picture you can see I already did this.


Next, solder the other sensors to the other wire sections after stripping and then solder the corresponding wire (make sure to put the temp in the temp spot and same for the hygro) to the circuit board.


Use hot glue on the end of the temp sensor to keep the wires from touching. You will see how they did this from the factory, when you take it out of the plastic part that says SENSOR.


Pass the wires through the back and Hot glue them in place after reattaching the back cover.


When you are finished, you will have three external sensors, 2 for temp and 1 for humidity. It will look something like this. Then you can measure temps for warm side and cool side as well as Humidity with the unit mounted outside of the enclosure.


I hope this pictorial can shed some light on how to do this simple mod, it should be a sticky as it will reduce the amount of money we all have to spend on temp/hygro sensors. But most importantly, it will prevent our Herps from coming into contact with the equipment we use and potential hazards they pose.



I would like to give special thanks to Will Bird from Extraordinary Ectotherms - Ectotherms.net - Home
He is the person that gave me the motivation to do this today.