Quote Originally Posted by jason79 View Post
One thing that I find kinda funny is people spend hundreds if not thousands on snakes and then want to skimp on the controller that could mean life or death for all the snakes in the rack. I have never used the thermostat in question but to be so cheap they had to use cheap materials to make it. Price doesn't necessarily mean it no good but I prefer to use top quality thermostats to protect my animals. When you figure in the cost of the animal replacement / vet bills if your t-stat fails it seems like 80.00 bucks or so more is nothing to get a top quality t -stat.
I don't mean to be offensive here but as you said just because a product isn't expensive does not mean it's not a quality product. I'm not advocating use of this tstat on an incubator or even putting it on your rack and leaving it for weeks on end without checking on it to ensure that it is working properly. But let's be honest here, what's a worst case scenario if a tstat fails? The flexwatt shuts off. Now I know that some owners would like their animals to stay at exactly 89.5degrees with no more than .01 degree fluctuation but quite frankly that's not always realistic nor is it necessary. These animals have survived for eons with what I'm pretty sure is a temperature fluctuation from time to time. I'm not saying it's good for animals to go without heat for any period of time but I can assure you they WILL survive it if it happens. When operating with an tstat its a good idea to have a back up plan in place regardless of the brand but other than that I see no GOOD reason why a less expensive tstat shouldn't be used.

It drives me nuts when people think you should have a 1500.00 set up for one or two animals with a 5000.00 savings account for back up before you should bring home your snake. The fact is people have kept and bred these animals in far worse conditions than simply having a cheap tstat. It's your collection ultimately and if you want the higher end tstat then by all means buy them but please don't look down on the smaller time owner that doesn't have the coin to spend on them. At least they are putting a tstat on and running the flexwatt wide open.

Is the hydrofarm the best choice? Probably not, but dollar for dollar it's a good tstat.

P. S. This was posted by someone who actually has experience related to the OPs question, not just an unfounded, unasked for negative opinion.