[Purchasing] Thermostats

[sharudd30]

Thinking about upgrading my thermostats. So are there any new developments in tech? Or are herpstat and ranco still the top dogs?

[acephantom903]

Re: Thermostats

As far as I know Herpstats are still up there. I would be curious to hear what other people know.

[Ridge Runner_20]

Re: Thermostats

I've tried others, and ultimately, it's all about Herpstats - period. Great product, reliable, easy to program, and extremely powerful. Really no reason to mess with anything else, IMHO. ��

RR_20 (Mike)

[natieb]

Re: Thermostats

I've tried others, and ultimately, it's all about Herpstats - period. Great product, reliable, easy to program, and extremely powerful. Really no reason to mess with anything else, IMHO.

I agree about the Herpstats. They're about as good as they get, and they're coming out with new and improved versions of their t-stats all the time.

The only thing comparable is Vivarium Electronics. They have a lot of similar features, but I don't have any experience with them personally so I can't really compare them.

[sharudd30]

Re: Thermostats

Have any of you heard of istat?

[Carmine]

Re: Thermostats

Herp and Helix are #1 choice in my book's = )

I like Ranco, Just Not a big fan of on-off setting's.

[Kung Fu Joe]

Re: Thermostats

I love my herpstats. Not only do they work great, but the "output percentage" (that's what I'm calling it anyway) is a really nice feature.

[zamora]

Re: Thermostats

I have Rancos which I LOVE because they are super easy to program (important for blondes like me) but worry that they may fail in the 'ON' position as I have heard they can do.

I have Herpstats which have a lot of great features including alarms that sound if the temps get too high or too low and automatic shutoff feature as a backup. That being said, I absolutely HATE the difficulty of programming. I can read directions like nobody's business but I detest programming these darn t-stats.

I have one VE and adore it. It has the relative ease of programming that I love and the safety features that I require. As I save up the money, I'm replacing all the Rancos first off with VEs and then once they are all replaced....out with the Herpstats.

Of course this is just one woman's opinion so take it with a grain of salt.

[natieb]

Re: Thermostats

I have Rancos which I LOVE because they are super easy to program (important for blondes like me) but worry that they may fail in the 'ON' position as I have heard they can do.

I have Herpstats which have a lot of great features including alarms that sound if the temps get too high or too low and automatic shutoff feature as a backup. That being said, I absolutely HATE the difficulty of programming. I can read directions like nobody's business but I detest programming these darn t-stats.

I have one VE and adore it. It has the relative ease of programming that I love and the safety features that I require. As I save up the money, I'm replacing all the Rancos first off with VEs and then once they are all replaced....out with the Herpstats.

Of course this is just one woman's opinion so take it with a grain of salt.

I bet all the appliances in your house are blinking 12:00 all the time, Grandma.

[zamora]

Re: Thermostats

I bet all the appliances in your house are blinking 12:00 all the time, Grandma.

Goes to show what YOU know [MENTION=7862]natieb[/MENTION] smartypants....1:12 actually.

[CompleteConstrictors]

Re: Thermostats

I've been using a herpstat 2 for a couple years and I love it. Just recently picked up a herpstat 4 for my expanding collection and it works great as well. Don't think I would use anything else. It has too many nice features, I may consider a more basic one for a back up thermostat. I don't have any backups set up yet and have heard some horror stories, so that will happen eventually!

[acephantom903]

Re: Thermostats

I don't have any backups set up yet and have heard some horror stories, so that will happen eventually!

Herpstats as far as I know all have a safety feature that when they fail, they fail off so they won't cook your snakes. But then you have cold snakes. Having back-ups even with Herpstats is a good thing because if it fails, you have a back up thermostat ready and waiting to reduce the time of cold snakes.

[NoNameXII]

Re: Thermostats

Herpstats as far as I know all have a safety feature that when they fail, they fail off so they won't cook your snakes.

This is one of the main reasons that I've only used Herpstats. That being said, my understanding is that the safety relay is really only in place to shut off the output in the event that the triac (the part that actually turns on/off the attached heater or controls the percentage power) fails such that it's stuck fully on, which is the most likely mode of failure. I believe that the safety relay is controlled by the same microcontroller as the triacs and rest of the thermostat, so it wouldn't protect against against microcontroller latchup or a programming bug. I'm also not sure how they handle watchdog timers, memory integrity, etc. Of course, I work in aviation, and specifically deal with a lot of FADEC engine controls where safety and redundancy are the absolute highest priority, so I'm probably taking this too seriously, but also, my snakes are my children, and they are the only children I will ever have :P... I've certainly thought about trying to create an open-source (hardware and software) thermostat design with all of the conveniences and safety features that I would want, but that's a huge undertaking, and I would definitely want plenty of other people involved that would be willing to review things on a regular basis for bugs, potential safety issues, etc.

tl;dr: I love the safety relay, but I'm definitely planning to add a Ranco or something similar (on-off only!) in series with each of my Herpstats for additional peace of mind!

[sharudd30]

Re: Thermostats

I read the whole thing. I think making your own tstat design would be pretty awesome, but you're right about the undertaking. I wonder if you could use an odroid or rasberry pie as the base hardware. On another note, I don't really have much understanding on the software side, so most of that tech speak went over my head

[NoNameXII]

Re: Thermostats

If I did it, I think I'd probably use two channels of something like the TI TMS570 as the basis, since that kind of MCU is designed with a lot of integrated hardware safety features. Raspberry Pi and others are really powerful, but they have a lot of overhead due to being designed for a wide range of general-purpose uses. Also, the lack of ECC memory, etc... There are plenty of other things to consider, too, like whether you want communications (i.e., Ethernet, Bluetooth, etc. for data logging) handled on-chip (easier) or separate in order to reduce the risk of issues in secondary systems affecting the primary, safety-critical operations. Don't get me wrong; I love systems like the rPi, and they're what got me interested in embedded electronics, but I'm kind of (really) crazy when it comes to safety. Arghh, now I'm kind of actually thinking about this thermostat thing again haha...