Inkbird inaccuracy
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Kensington Reefer
Supporting Member
There is a reason that you don't see InkBird in ANY scientific research institutions!
Coral reefer
Past President
Worry about the difference of 1 degree?
Unless all the probes are touching each other there could possibly be differences of where each probe is resting in the tank.
I wouldn't personally worry Unless I ran my tank around 80 degrees. They seem close enough in range I wouldn’t loose sleep over it.
I run one on everyone of my tanks, with temp set the same. They all read differently even with the tanks that are in the same room. So many varriants are in play i don't care unless one shows a crazy reading and the alarm goes off.
I wouldn't personally worry Unless I ran my tank around 80 degrees. They seem close enough in range I wouldn’t loose sleep over it.
I run one on everyone of my tanks, with temp set the same. They all read differently even with the tanks that are in the same room. So many varriants are in play i don't care unless one shows a crazy reading and the alarm goes off.
Bryce.martin23
Supporting Member
Better than mine saying 92 on two different units. I won’t trust INKBIRD ever again.
Bryce.martin23
Supporting Member
Is there any brands you recommend looking my at? I don’t mind paying industrial prices for a piece of gear so critical.
What are you suggesting is better? Ranco’s specs are less accurate and don’t show decimals, for comparison.
My experience is the inkbird probes. It starts as a little and then quickly tends to get out of control. One of mine I replaced the probe with another equivalent one bought from Amazon or AliExpress and it went back to normal.
I am a big fan of frugality, but these inkbirds kill me. The Wi-Fi ones if they lose internet connection they start having issues updating their readings. Other ones they're using cheap two-wire probes instead of three-wire probes, saving. A dollar per device at best which I think is part of the issue in reliability. Two-Wire ones are more susceptible to minor resistance or electromagnetic interference causing them to go wonky. I'm not sure why the inkbird probes go bad though.
Interestingly, it wouldn't be too hard to make it so that the probes could be easily swappable with a little DIY magic. Especially given they are using a. Two-wire pro, it would be pretty straightforward to make it so you could just swap a new probe in in using a DC style port.
If anybody has one that is super wonky, LMK. Maybe we can give it a try.
The other inkbird trick is to run it in Celsius mode. In celsius mode you can do finer grained adjustments of the offset, at least on the ones I've had. For example, on the Wi-Fi ones I think the smallest Fahrenheit adjustment is like 1°, but in Celsius the smallest is more like 0.1° c.
I am a big fan of frugality, but these inkbirds kill me. The Wi-Fi ones if they lose internet connection they start having issues updating their readings. Other ones they're using cheap two-wire probes instead of three-wire probes, saving. A dollar per device at best which I think is part of the issue in reliability. Two-Wire ones are more susceptible to minor resistance or electromagnetic interference causing them to go wonky. I'm not sure why the inkbird probes go bad though.
Interestingly, it wouldn't be too hard to make it so that the probes could be easily swappable with a little DIY magic. Especially given they are using a. Two-wire pro, it would be pretty straightforward to make it so you could just swap a new probe in in using a DC style port.
If anybody has one that is super wonky, LMK. Maybe we can give it a try.
The other inkbird trick is to run it in Celsius mode. In celsius mode you can do finer grained adjustments of the offset, at least on the ones I've had. For example, on the Wi-Fi ones I think the smallest Fahrenheit adjustment is like 1°, but in Celsius the smallest is more like 0.1° c.
tribbitt
Supporting Member
I attended an online talk, hosted by Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station, where Dr. Steve Palumbi talked about coral conservation efforts. Apparently they use Inkbird controllers for their heat stress experiments, among other hobbyist equipment, because they're cheap, good enough, and can be deployed quickly and maintained easily when in more remote locations.
The tanks he uses are beer coolers too lol
Kensington Reefer
Supporting Member
Digital Temperature Controllers – Aqualogic
aqualogicinc.com
I never used the wifi InkBirds because they get poor reviews. I have a bunch of the old school non-wifi ones and never had a problem with any. But all temperature controllers I use have backups carefully designed to avoid fail-on, fail-off, and gross miscalibration failures.
2 of the ones I have are wifi versions, though I set them up using the buttons. I didn't go do the wifi setup part. I haven't had any issues with them. They seem to pretty much function same and the non wifi versions. Though clearly painting Out I never used the wifi feature so I can't speak to issues on that part of them.
My heaters also have built in thermostats. Mainly the finnex models. So they cut off themselves. The inkbirds are just set beyond normal ranges. As a extra back up. Heaters set to 78, inkbirds set to 79. For example. Yet the heaters themselves cut off before the inkbirds would.
Probably not the best option out there I'll admit. Just how I do things. Inkbirds for me biggest perk for me is the large digtal temperature display.
My main sps tank also has a temperature prob through the hydros controller as well capable of shutting down the heater.
Try power cycling them to see how they behave since that's often their failure point. In general you need to test all your systems to see how they react in a power outage and if they return to previous settings or that your sump doesn't overflow.
I've done that with return pumps of course. Yet I've never thought to try it with inkbirds. I will try it later after work.
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
As mentioned it's within operating procedures. Hell I looked at their website, and for the ITC-308 series (not sure which ones you have as they don't have any writing on the units that hint to which version it is) it's +/- 2°F
As I tell my students all the time, those extra decimals mean f***-all if you really don't know if they're accurate. (ok, I don't quite phrase it that way)