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ALIFE 1000 THERMOSTATS - DEFECTIVE?

S

sputnik

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Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has had problems with the Alife 1000 thermostats sold by places like LLLReptile?

I had one that failed to switch off the heat when it reached the desired temp seting. I returned it and got a new one no problems. This defective one was shooting the cage temp up to 130 degress when the desired max temp was 89 F

I now have had another one that I have had for 6 months do the same thing all of a sudden (no warning). The big question here is, are other people experiencing these similar problems?

If so, then there is a rather "BIG" question mark hanging over this line of thermostats. I got them so that I don't have to worry about being out all day during the summer time and having my snakes heating setup (heat lamps and light setups etc) staying on during the high heat and then coming back on during the colder days.

Now I am not game to leave the house!

I would appreciate any comments on problems you may of had with these Alife 1000 thermostats.

Thanks,

Scott Collien
 
I have several of them, and so far my largest complaint is that I must re-calibrate about every 3 days. I use me temp gun to check to the temps in the tanks, and then adjust the thermostat accordingly. If I want the tank at 90 I check the actual temp at which to the alife sets itself off, and set the temp on the thermostat accordingly. I have heard from others that their Alife failed, (at the local IRBA show) and thats why I check the calibration so often. I would switch to ESU as I have heard nothing negative about them, but I have snakes litterally all over the house, so I have 15 thermostats right now, thats a LOT of money in thermostats and replacing them all is very expensive.
 
I thin biostat alife and ESU are all teh same. I had an ESU cook many $1000s in animals yesterday , the ysuck too.
 
You guys need to check out this link.

Last year one of my friends lost about $80,000 in boa morphs because of a thermostat malfunction like you guys have experienced. Soon after his accident I came up with this devise to help prevent this kind of problem.

Click here to read about our safety, shut down switch.

Mod,
If this violates the T.O.S. I apologize and please delete this post. I am not advertising for my benefit!! I am just letting these people know that there is a product available for this problem.
 
ALIFE IS TOTAL CRAP

I have 7 alife thermostats, 3 of these are now defective. Latest one is 6 weeks old, I just happened to be up getting a drink at 3am and my blood python cage was at 140F


I consider myself very lucky it's still alive and that I caught the thermostat failing or I would of woken up to three dead snakes.

If anyone knows of a RELIABLE thermostat, let me know as i am not buying alife 1000 just to cook snakes!

I think Jon R has some nice shut off switches!
 
Perhaps alot more expensive than than the A-life and ESU thermostats, but definitely worth the money is the Big Apple Proportional thermostat. Also, the Helix thermostats do an excellent job as well. I've got a Big Apple set up on my new chondro egg incubator and it is holding temps solid to within 2/10 of a degree. The Big Apple and the Helix units all have optional night drop features as well.

I haven't found any of the other "cheapy" thermostats on the market to be of much use other than either freezing or frying animals. Personally, I'd rather spend $100 on a thermostat that works than spend $30 on one and end up cooking several thousand dollars in critters.
 
RANCO THERMOSTATS

I use these now instead of cheap CRAP like ESU and ALIFE 1000 thermostats.

The ranco also has the optional night drop temps and you program how much it drops, which is VERY nice!

I have had one for a while now and found it to be very reliable! I am switching to these to control all of my heating needs. One controls 8 light fixtures with ease. I had mine wired up to a 6 outlet power board by a master electrician.

Alife and ESU are not worth the time or money, they NOT reliable and you are gambling witb your reptiles lives as far as I am concerned by using them.
 
The rancos actually do not have a night drop, they have a differential setting that will let them drop to a certain set point and then they will heat right back up/ They are however awsome themos. I use the johnsons thermostast that are about half the size of a ranco...
 
You need to get yourself a good thermostat.. A Johnson controls will take care of the "cooking" problems:)
 
Cheap Thermostats Not Worth It

I have had 4 of the "cheap" ($25-35) thermostats malfunction on me in the past year. There's no getting around it; they're crap. It makes no sense to risk thousands of dollars of herps to save $80 on a thermostat.

So, before any more reptiles are killed by these incompetent pieces of junk, please don't buy them. I learned my lesson the hard way.
 
I agree with Rob. I was initially looking for a cheap thermostat for my racks. But, luckily I came to my senses. I spent well over a thousand on racks to house thousands of dollars worth of animals, many of whom are irreplaceable due to sentimental reasons. Why risk them all on a cheapo thermostat? I bought a couple of Helixes. The room that my racks are in experiences a lot of temperature fluctuations, but the temp in my racks stays virtually constant. They've been working great for over a year now.

I encourage everyone to read reviews and look for info on thermostats (you can use the search feature on this site to turn up loads of good info; it really helped me make an informed decision). Understand the difference between proportional and on/off. Find out what and why people like certain brands / types, and go with one of these proven models. With so much depending on your thermostat, it's worth it to do some research to ensure that you are buying a quality thermostat that meets your needs.

-Alice
 
THese things are really utter crap. I have used them for a while. I had a couple early on that contantly malfunctioned, I have more recently used a couple of them with better luck, but I was still zapping them many times daily, and rotating the knobs back and forth just to make sure they would turn on/off. I am now officially rid of them and will sell the 4 I have left cheap!:)
 
MGReptiles said:
http://www.mgreptiles.com/THERMOCOMPARE.html Here is our thermostat compairision page.. This is not based on only my ratings for the thermostats but the feedback I get from my customers...
Click to expand...

I found this discussion while I was looking for information on one of the standard pet supply thermostats. After looking at the information here and shopping around for prices I bought the Johnson Controls A419 thermostat from MG reptiles and I'm very happy with it. It's a solid industrial grade thermostat with a lot of features. By doing the wiring myself it didn't cost all that much more than the thermostat people were reporting problems with.

It looks like I could get a night differential with this thermostat by simply adding a clock switch, also sometimes called a timer switch. There are a lot of them out there, but I'm looking for something digital, cheap and easy. All it has to do is close a low voltage switch for the specified time period. Does anyone have any suggestions?
 
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