ITC-308 Temperature Controller

Works perfectly!

I purchased this device to regulate the temperature of a refrigerated for cheese making. The device is performing as intended and holding the temperature at 21 degrees Celsius as requested. I have not used equipment such as this before but had no issue operating the device because the included instruction were clear and concise. Please note that I am operating this device in India and I did have to use outlet adapters for both the input and output.

I bought my first Inkbird ITC 308 about a year ago after reading multiple recommendations on the home brewing forums and I put it to use controlling the temperature of my fermentation chamber (a converted fridge). It worked so well - basically you 'set it and forget it' - that I've bought a second unit to handle temperature control in my dispensing cabinet (kegerator) build. FEATURES The idea of the Inkbird is really simple to understand. You enter the temperature you want it to maintain and you place the probe somewhere for it to measure that temperature. You enter the lowest that you're willing to tolerate the temperature being off by and if the measured temperature falls below that point it will activate the socket marked 'heating' until the measured temperature reaches your ideal point. Similarly you enter the highest temperature you want to tolerate and if the measured temperature breaches it then it will activate the socket marked 'cooling'. All you need to do is plug a heating device into the socket marked heating and a cooling device (e.g. a fridge, freezer) into the socket marked cooling. It is not mandatory to have both plugged in at the same time, for example I don't need cooling in the depths of winter so I just plug the heater in. The Inkbird has a safety feature that allows you to specify the minimum time between activating the cooling socket. Fridges and freezers can be damaged if their compressors are cycled too quickly. This feature prevents such damage, and in the event of power loss it will assume that cooling was previously on and will not reactivate it until the safety time has run down - nice. Another nice feature is that it has a buzzer alarm for high and low temperature thresholds in case your heater gets stuck on I guess. I've never used that. You can also calibrate the thermistor probe by entering an offset if you find that it drifts over time. ACCURACY I have an ETI thermocouple with recent calibration certificate that I compared my ITC 308 units to. The first one was only 0.1C off, the second one was 0.2C off. Those differences are within the margin of error of the probes. That's rather impressive and of course once I'd entered the offset into the ITC 308's calibration feature the difference was zero. EASE OF USE Hold down SET. Cycle through the different options using up/down to enter the numbers. Hold down SET when you're done. All settings are remembered when the power is cut. PROBE CABLE LENGTH 2 metres. BUILD QUALITY It feels very tightly put together. All cables have tough rubber strain reliefs at the exit from the unit. There's a handy screw/cable-tie hole at the top. The plug is UK 3-pin. WARRANTY 12 months TIPS Use the lowest power heater you can get away with. If it's too powerful you'll get overshoot as the heater will still be hot long after the power has been cut. Try to measure what it is you want to control rather than the air around it. Again this will avoid constant cycling as the air changes temperature rapidly before whatever it is you're trying to monitor 'catches up'. SUMMARY I'm super happy with mine; I guess I must be if I came back for a second one and I echo the positive comments that the other home brewers are saying about the ITC 308.

Item was delivered fast and packaged well. This product is very well made and has excellent build quality. It works exactly as sold, accurate description, and I have had zero faults running the device 24/7 for well over 6 months now to maintain the temperature of my DIY keezer build for my draught beer taps. Great value for money and I highly recommend.

Good

Solved the purpose. High quality. Highly recommended.