HisDudeness
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- Apr 16, 2015
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Had my competition prize arrive today so will use this thread to post a detailed review for anyone who is interested in purchasing one.
This first bit will just cover initial impressions and testing as I haven't been able to set it up properly yet.
Out of the box it looks good and appears well made the instructions are quite detailed and make it fairly easy to setup the basic parameters (although it does help having used STC 1000s prior to this). It is as advertised 'plug and play' and definitely a good solution for those who don't wish to wire up there own unit. At this price and considering the extra features its a great deal in my opinion, once you factor in the cost of the housing and wiring for an STC 1000 there really isn't that big a difference anyway.
A couple of minor gripes, the temperature sensor is not detachable which I think would make feeding the cable through the back of refrigerators etc a little easier. It could also be a bit longer 5ft is probably fine in most situations but with a large larder fridge this makes it a bit tricky to run it round the back and still have the controller at a comfortable height. I would also have liked a longer lead on the heating and cooling sockets as it is only about a foot long. These are all fairly easy to overcome and are probably more apparent to me as when wiring up an STC 1000 the cables can be made to measure.
The set up is easy enough and pretty much the same as the STC 1000 except for a couple of extra options, there are the timer settings which I haven't tested yet and also separate heating and cooling differentials so you can allow a different variation for the upper and lower limits. I will still set both to the lowest variation of 0.3C but I guess this could be useful if you want the fridge or heater to be more or less reactive to temp change. There are also alarms that can be set for when the sensor reaches upper and lower temp limits that you can define, I will probably use these as I have had a relay fail in an STC 1000 before and lock closed so that the cooling circuit was on permanently, the alarms could quickly alert you to such a problem or anything else causing temps to move out of a safe window. One thing that was a bit annoying was the way the unit exits settings mode automatically after 10s of no button presses without saving changes, it reset itself several times while I was checking the instructions meaning I had to start again which can make the process a bit frustrating! This should be set to between 30s and a minute in my opinion as there are a lot of parameters to go through.
First thing I wanted to check was the temp measurement so I plugged it in and put the sensor in the insulation pocket on my FV next to the one currently running my STC 1000 (not an inkbird BTW). I cross referenced this with my pen thermometer which I am fairly confident in having tested the calibration previously. After leaving temp to settle for about 10mins with the door closed the ITC 310 read 19.3C, the STC 1000 read 19.0 and the pen thermometer read 19.4C. I was pretty happy with that (although I think I should have been a bit more careful testing/calibrating the STC 1000 when I set it up!) as its within 0.1C of my most trusted temp reading. I did notice that the sensor on the ITC 310 was quite slow to react to temp changes for example if I handled the sensor and the temp went up it would take a few minutes to settle back to the correct reading once placed back on the FV, I think this is probably a good thing as I guess it means it will probably be more stable once it achieves the correct temp but will need to check this once it is controlling the brew fridge.
Thats it for now hopefully have it up and running properly tomorrow and will have a play with timer settings at some point soon so will update accordingly. Overall very pleased so far, obviously getting it for free helps but I think I would definitely be happy to have paid for it as well. :thumb:
This first bit will just cover initial impressions and testing as I haven't been able to set it up properly yet.
Out of the box it looks good and appears well made the instructions are quite detailed and make it fairly easy to setup the basic parameters (although it does help having used STC 1000s prior to this). It is as advertised 'plug and play' and definitely a good solution for those who don't wish to wire up there own unit. At this price and considering the extra features its a great deal in my opinion, once you factor in the cost of the housing and wiring for an STC 1000 there really isn't that big a difference anyway.
A couple of minor gripes, the temperature sensor is not detachable which I think would make feeding the cable through the back of refrigerators etc a little easier. It could also be a bit longer 5ft is probably fine in most situations but with a large larder fridge this makes it a bit tricky to run it round the back and still have the controller at a comfortable height. I would also have liked a longer lead on the heating and cooling sockets as it is only about a foot long. These are all fairly easy to overcome and are probably more apparent to me as when wiring up an STC 1000 the cables can be made to measure.
The set up is easy enough and pretty much the same as the STC 1000 except for a couple of extra options, there are the timer settings which I haven't tested yet and also separate heating and cooling differentials so you can allow a different variation for the upper and lower limits. I will still set both to the lowest variation of 0.3C but I guess this could be useful if you want the fridge or heater to be more or less reactive to temp change. There are also alarms that can be set for when the sensor reaches upper and lower temp limits that you can define, I will probably use these as I have had a relay fail in an STC 1000 before and lock closed so that the cooling circuit was on permanently, the alarms could quickly alert you to such a problem or anything else causing temps to move out of a safe window. One thing that was a bit annoying was the way the unit exits settings mode automatically after 10s of no button presses without saving changes, it reset itself several times while I was checking the instructions meaning I had to start again which can make the process a bit frustrating! This should be set to between 30s and a minute in my opinion as there are a lot of parameters to go through.
First thing I wanted to check was the temp measurement so I plugged it in and put the sensor in the insulation pocket on my FV next to the one currently running my STC 1000 (not an inkbird BTW). I cross referenced this with my pen thermometer which I am fairly confident in having tested the calibration previously. After leaving temp to settle for about 10mins with the door closed the ITC 310 read 19.3C, the STC 1000 read 19.0 and the pen thermometer read 19.4C. I was pretty happy with that (although I think I should have been a bit more careful testing/calibrating the STC 1000 when I set it up!) as its within 0.1C of my most trusted temp reading. I did notice that the sensor on the ITC 310 was quite slow to react to temp changes for example if I handled the sensor and the temp went up it would take a few minutes to settle back to the correct reading once placed back on the FV, I think this is probably a good thing as I guess it means it will probably be more stable once it achieves the correct temp but will need to check this once it is controlling the brew fridge.
Thats it for now hopefully have it up and running properly tomorrow and will have a play with timer settings at some point soon so will update accordingly. Overall very pleased so far, obviously getting it for free helps but I think I would definitely be happy to have paid for it as well. :thumb:
