Thermostat for night cooling

[mikels]

I'm trying to find a thermostat with timed, multistage settings to provide a cooler nighttime period without turning off the heat source completely. The idea is to achieve about 87F ambient during the day, then drop to about 81F at night, to create a somewhat natural cycle. This is for a closed indoor enclosure.

Can anyone share a good digital multistage thermostat, working from actual time, that would work for this purpose? There are too many choices out there...

I purchased an inkbird thermostat, but didn't look close enough at the specs - this type of thermostat is for brewing batch cycles, so while it can be programmed (with some difficulty) for two or more temperature periods, it does not have a timer that can be set for a 24 hour cycle, based on the actual time of day, and works independent of time or photoperiod. Because, of course, yeast don't sleep. I could turn it on at the start of one period or other to get it started, but every power outtage would gradually change the periods and offset the temps from the timed photoperiod, and I don't want to have complicated reprogramming events multiple times each winter. A less complicated programming setup than inkbird would be nice, too, if such a thing exists.


Mike

 

[Blackdog1714]

For what kind and age of tortoise. With one CHE you could use a simple flood light bulb on a timer for day. The CHE could then be plugged into the Inkbird and maintain your temp when the light is off

 

[Tom]

Set one heating element on a thermostat for 81. This will be "on" and working 24/7 and your temp will not drop below this day or night.

Set a second thermostat and heating element to 87 on a timer to come on in the morning and and shut off at night.

Some times low(er) tech works better.

 

[mikels]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. It sounds like I may need to follow one of these work-around methods to achieve this goal.

I know plenty of timers have multistage functionality, so it seemed to me that there had to be a few thermostats out there that could work that way too.

 

[mikels]

In case anyone else is interested, I found a product designed to produce a night time temp drop. The settings are based on the actual time of day. The best part? It looks far easier to operate than inkbird. It's not cheap, but possibly not much more in cost than running a second heat source on a separate thermostat. Still looking for reviews... not too many on amazon. Ball python people apparently like it.

I like the VE-300 model, by vivarium electronics.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U3490L8/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

Mike