Inkbird Temperature Controller Probe ITC-308

[Chris Villalobos]

Wow what a terrible probe for a reef tank. 2" of metal and a questionable seal to the cable assembly. No wonder there are reports of the calibration drifting over time.

I did a DIY fix for this that seems to be working. The probe itself will fit into a empty bic pen tube. I mixed up some epoxy and basically incased the first 5 inches of the probe assembly within the bic pen. The probe still works and now I don't have to worry about salt water touching it.

 

[Brad Miller]

Nice idea.
I would be curious if encasing it now would effect the actual temp readings by a degree or so.
Maybe do a comparison with another probe that is not cased.
We call this putting a sensor in an immersion well and usually would put a "heat conductive compound" in the well, then insert the probe, then seal it. This helps with an offset you may have to figure on.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Nice idea.
I would be curious if encasing it now would effect the actual temp readings by a degree or so.
Maybe do a comparison with another probe that is not cased.
We call this putting a sensor in an immersion well and usually would put a "heat conductive compound" in the well, then insert the probe, then seal it. This helps with an offset you may have to figure on.

From what I've read it seems like most of the Inkbird units need calibrating as part of the setup, and there is an easy way to digitally calibrate the probe. My unit was off by a degree in the first place. After encapsulation and calibration, the probe tracks my other digital thermometer almost exactly. The unit varies temperature 1 degree. Basically I have it set at 76.5 degrees F +/- 0.5 degrees. Since the heating and cooling of the water is slow it seems there is enough time to heat up the plastic/epoxy shell around the sensor for the probe to still work as intended.

 

[Brad Miller]

Awesome !

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Just in case it's not clear. I left no air gaps between the sensor and plastic pen shell. The whole pen body is filled with epoxy. I used a spare 1ml syringe to fill it up.

 

[ca1ore]

I think it’s a good idea to seal these probes. The ranco controller, for example, can be bought with an already encapsulated probe.