This is somewhat eutrophic zone (see my post about snakes), but now that we have a snake I've been looking at equipment there. The nice thing is there's a lot less equipment needs in keeping this snake. However, keeping temperature regulated is still important.
I started looking at temp controllers, and found some of the options are overlapping with reef tanks, particularly at the low-end there's Inkbird controllers. I started looking into the higher end ones a bit more, and in doing so decided to fall down the DIY end again, at least as an experiment. Since the temp measurement is so similar to a reef tank, I thought I'd share some of the things I learned, and how my current device is working.
For a snake enclosure, the heat management is usually one of:
Ideally the microcontroller will then crank the output percentage up super high when the temp is way too low, and when it gets to approximately the right temp, it'll keep the voltage at just enough to keep the temp stable. The algorithm/technique for calculating and managing how much heat to output is done through a Proportional-Integral-Derivative controller (PID controller). That's just a fancy term for trying to make big changes when you're way off your mark, then be more controlled when you're closer.
Current state is I have an ESP32 + a standard 3-wire temp probe + a AC dimmer doing all this in a test setup in my living room:
You can see from around 10pm-10:24pm the temp was bouncing around a bit. That's the PID controller getting tuned (trying to figure out exactly how much it needs to stay on to keep temps stable). Once it figures that out, it's then rock-solid stable temp-wise.
The software for this is using ESPHome. Same as what I'd talked about in other recent little DIY electronic things. The really nice part about this is there's no code I had to write. I connected the wires, messed around with some configs (with a lot of ChatGPT help/guidance) and then install it through a web-ui.
Main points that I think are relevant for reefing, that I'm curious to continue looking into:
I started looking at temp controllers, and found some of the options are overlapping with reef tanks, particularly at the low-end there's Inkbird controllers. I started looking into the higher end ones a bit more, and in doing so decided to fall down the DIY end again, at least as an experiment. Since the temp measurement is so similar to a reef tank, I thought I'd share some of the things I learned, and how my current device is working.
For a snake enclosure, the heat management is usually one of:
- a heat lamp -- effectively a lightbulb designed to generate a lot of heat instead of light (sometimes only infrared light)
- a heating pad -- effectively a little pad you stick to the bottom of an enclosure (eg an aquarium) that gets hot
- heat tape -- I believe this is effectively the same as the heating pad, but in tape form
- simple on/off thermostat: this is what an Inkbird does, both in reefs and their reptile versions. At a certain temperature it turns on. At a different temperature it turns off. Repeat to keep the temp in about the right range.
- dimming thermostat: instead of on-off, do a percentage on, like you would with dimming lights. When people talk about heaters always running on, but just enough to hold steady temperature, this is what they're referring to (assuming it's not just always at 100%). This is the more advanced/ideal setup.
Ideally the microcontroller will then crank the output percentage up super high when the temp is way too low, and when it gets to approximately the right temp, it'll keep the voltage at just enough to keep the temp stable. The algorithm/technique for calculating and managing how much heat to output is done through a Proportional-Integral-Derivative controller (PID controller). That's just a fancy term for trying to make big changes when you're way off your mark, then be more controlled when you're closer.
Current state is I have an ESP32 + a standard 3-wire temp probe + a AC dimmer doing all this in a test setup in my living room:
You can see from around 10pm-10:24pm the temp was bouncing around a bit. That's the PID controller getting tuned (trying to figure out exactly how much it needs to stay on to keep temps stable). Once it figures that out, it's then rock-solid stable temp-wise.
The software for this is using ESPHome. Same as what I'd talked about in other recent little DIY electronic things. The really nice part about this is there's no code I had to write. I connected the wires, messed around with some configs (with a lot of ChatGPT help/guidance) and then install it through a web-ui.
Main points that I think are relevant for reefing, that I'm curious to continue looking into:
- another example here where the hobby needs don't need hobby-centric stuff. This standard, smart home, climate control software does the same thing as the hobby specific ones, but has wayyyyy nicer UIs for visualization, and you can connect it to whatever else. Want your living room smart lights to flip red when your temperature is out of range? You can do it with a couple clicks. Want a push notification and email to your phone? Same.
- what reef temp controllers out there are doing dimming versus pure on-off? I assume a lot (most?) of the heaters with built-in temp management are, but is that true? I assume most controllers are not doing this, and are pure on-off (Apex for instance). I wonder if the reptile controllers with a titanium heater would be the solution for a super reliable reef heater. For instance, the Herpstat 1 does proportional heating, and can handle 700w, for $150 (with wifi and a UI for $165).
