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Reliable temperature/humidity controllers


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Hi guys. 

Ive been growing highland heliamphora, drosera and nepenthes for 3 years now. 

My setup is run with a water chiller/sump and pc radiator with fans to achieve my highland temperature requirements which is keeping it below 24c in the day and 12c at night, humidity is kept around 80%.

Now my plants grow well but Ive become so frustrated with the controller units I've had to achieve these temperatures and humidity. 

The first brand I bought from the start was a Zoomed hygrotherm, it does everything I need but the humidity part of the unit desides to fail first on these units witch I've had 4 of these. 

Basically the unit gets stuck in the on position within the switching unit and if I'm not at home will keep pumping out fog until I tap the controller part of unit of a surface witch free's up the switching mechanism, after some months each unit gets more consistent and the temperature part also will start the same problem. 

Ive also had Inbird controllers do this also. 

Im really starting to loose hope and considering giving up my highland plant hobby witch is a real shame, really love growing these plants. 

Could anyone let me know what works for you? as I can't find anything around apart from the units I've had. 

Regards

 

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Humidity controlling is quite advanced and expensive. I am running a tank on microclimate evo plus. It is an awsome unit with amazing accuracy. However, the product was discontinued due to expensive hardware, ie the humidity sensor. I would pay almost anything for more of this controller.

Without this controller awailable, I have been forced to develop my own controller in arduino. Two years into the project now, it is working good, but needs a more expensive humidity sensor. And my engineer that are drawing the capsule is slow. Like he have more important things to do :).

I can supply the fully functional code, the circuit diagram and a list of hardware for free if you want to test it. In a year or so there will be a fully functional product  I hope.

However, you dont need perfect humidity and temperature all the time. Nature is not allways perfect and the plants are adopted to flucturations.

 

Br

Magnus    

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when you look for it on ebay for the same item you can find them between 10 and 25€ it's depend of the country and the ebayer but all of them come from shenzeng !!!

 

for example I used for my fish tank STC-1000 temperature controller with success for a long time like this from ebay you can ind them between 6 and 25€ for the same thing

 

Edited by Fabrice Reolon
ex STC1000
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On 12/31/2020 at 9:15 PM, Tropfrog said:

Humidity controlling is quite advanced and expensive. I am running a tank on microclimate evo plus. It is an awsome unit with amazing accuracy. However, the product was discontinued due to expensive hardware, ie the humidity sensor. I would pay almost anything for more of this controller.

Without this controller awailable, I have been forced to develop my own controller in arduino. Two years into the project now, it is working good, but needs a more expensive humidity sensor. And my engineer that are drawing the capsule is slow. Like he have more important things to do :).

I can supply the fully functional code, the circuit diagram and a list of hardware for free if you want to test it. In a year or so there will be a fully functional product  I hope.

However, you dont need perfect humidity and temperature all the time. Nature is not allways perfect and the plants are adopted to flucturations.

 

Br

Magnus    

Thanks for the reply. 

That evo brand was something I had looked into but found it didn't have a the functions I need for my Terrarium, so draw a blank there unfortunately as I know they are a very good product but are aimed for the heating ability for primary use. 

Its the cooling part witch is the more difficult to find in products. 

Fair play man, if you got the know how making a scratch built product good on you, I wouldn't know where to start. 

Sounds interesting wouldn't mind having a look at what you have so far and try and give it a go myself.

But yea very interested in a product designed with the functions aimed at highland plants. 

Especially if it's reliable. 

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On 12/31/2020 at 11:43 PM, m.a.x said:

Do you have tried the hydro/thermo controller for reptile pet? I am very satisfied with this....

Hi, 

Ive looked at the specifications and couldn't see any cooling functions. 

To me it appears to keep to a specific temperature (heat) 

Could you let me know how this works keeping you terrarium cool, Once a set temperature has gone up say 2 degrees due to temperature being warmer in the house but to warm for the terrarium?

Thanks

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1 hour ago, mark funnell said:

Thanks for the reply. 

That evo brand was something I had looked into but found it didn't have a the functions I need for my Terrarium, so draw a blank there unfortunately as I know they are a very good product but are aimed for the heating ability for primary use. 

Its the cooling part witch is the more difficult to find in products. 

Fair play man, if you got the know how making a scratch built product good on you, I wouldn't know where to start. 

Sounds interesting wouldn't mind having a look at what you have so far and try and give it a go myself.

But yea very interested in a product designed with the functions aimed at highland plants. 

Especially if it's reliable. 

The achievments right now is a solid software and wiering diagram. If you are not diy type of person I am not sure it will make sense yet. It works good on increase/decreased humidity and increase temperature. Decrease temperature hasent been tested because of lack of chilling eqipment. However, I cannot imagine any problems. There are different threshold values for Day night value. For cost issues and ease of use day/night is determined by photo sensor instead of timer. Any change in photoperiod will automatically change period for night/Day values. Any other function more than decreased temperature that you think is needed for highland setup? While waiting for the enclosure I might as well play around with more functions based on input.    

Edited by Tropfrog
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5 hours ago, Tropfrog said:

The achievments right now is a solid software and wiering diagram. If you are not diy type of person I am not sure it will make sense yet. It works good on increase/decreased humidity and increase temperature. Decrease temperature hasent been tested because of lack of chilling eqipment. However, I cannot imagine any problems. There are different threshold values for Day night value. For cost issues and ease of use day/night is determined by photo sensor instead of timer. Any change in photoperiod will automatically change period for night/Day values. Any other function more than decreased temperature that you think is needed for highland setup? While waiting for the enclosure I might as well play around with more functions based on input.    

I do injoy a project that's for sure. Not saying I would nail it but would would like to check out what you have so far. 

The photo sensor is a good function to have, exactly the same as the zoomed controller I have, saves having to change times and just rely on the T5s to turn off to put it into night mode. 

For me the cooling function is very important, due to lack of space for my Terrarium it is situated in a fairly exposed west facing house extension witch gets rather warm in the summer so the chiller does come on every 15mins or so to bring the temps back down to 24c.

Going by your name, what frogs do you keep? 

Ive fairly recently got in vivarium plants and Amphibians

Currently got two vivs one with mantellas and another with pumilio blue jeans. 

Another problem with these is cooler temps when the summer arrives but a least that will be much easier to control with a Ac unit in the room.

 

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I keep only dendrobates leucomelas at the moment. Living in sweden and running aircondition the hottest months so chilling havent been necessary. All my plants that needs somewhat colder temperature year round is in my unheated basement. The plants that need cold but frost free in winter is in a heated owerwintering tent in my greenhouse.

I will work on a Youtube vid about my environment control unit and put up before spring. Check out for Green machine sweden.

 

Edited by Tropfrog
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On 1/3/2021 at 7:03 PM, Tropfrog said:

I keep only dendrobates leucomelas at the moment. Living in sweden and running aircondition the hottest months so chilling havent been necessary. All my plants that needs somewhat colder temperature year round is in my unheated basement. The plants that need cold but frost free in winter is in a heated owerwintering tent in my greenhouse.

I will work on a Youtube vid about my environment control unit and put up before spring. Check out for Green machine sweden.

 

Wish I had a options for placement of my Terrarium. 

But really where it is shouldn't be a issue if the bluddy controllers were Reliable. 

Let me know on here when you post it up, I will check it out. 

Cheers

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On 1/3/2021 at 12:47 PM, mark funnell said:

Hi, 

Ive looked at the specifications and couldn't see any cooling functions. 

To me it appears to keep to a specific temperature (heat) 

Could you let me know how this works keeping you terrarium cool, Once a set temperature has gone up say 2 degrees due to temperature being warmer in the house but to warm for the terrarium?

Thanks

Hi i use TECO chiller, this aquarium marine chiller have built in the therm controller: set the temperature and enjoy.  For warming and humidity control i use this reptile controller. On the display you have all info (temperature, humidity, light period, ecc...) you need.

 

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