24V AC Digitial Temperature Controller

sorry, i forgot to star this discussion. is there a way i can set my account to automatically star any thread i have a post in -- or at least the threads i start.

appreciate all the points in response. i'm probably closer to the last in sentiment, i.e. use for control, test for repeatability and utility on your own system and roll out carefully elsewhere.

i value wholesalers after a fashion but I have to admit, if you price black nipples and fittings at supplyhouse.com formerly pexsupply.com and at your local wholesaler we're talking a 50% difference sometimes. and they offer both chinese and american options in most fittings. and i get one day shipping for free (because of where i am located - not because they give overnight shipping).

and i just do not buy that unloading $50 or these days $75 per relay box is a long term sustainable solution for those of us who like a lot of controls. While the $9 ones may leave something to be desired (i'll let you know in a couple weeks, dropping in my first one in a control circuit) look at all the SSRs out there. and like the honeywell vaporstat, the proprietary heating manufaturers are slow to change from their 60 year old line of controls -- except they madet their vaporstate worse in the industrial stampede away from mercury. And where they do engage in developing hi tech solid state stuff they push the black box side, hide the algorithms and don't give the user/installer as much access to work with the controls in any other than the narrow band of operation they conceive. and for the most part they charge a friggin pretty penny for the stuff.

now in a way this is like the drug companies. spend a lot of money investigating until you find one compound that has some upside and then lay it on in price and promote it as superior to existing medicines to make a big mark-up for a while.

some people are going to think, this is what my doc wrote me the scrip for and the drugstore has got it and all the beautiful people on the commercials get better when they take it (even if they tell me diarrhea, incontinence and death are the side effedcts) so why wouldn't i support that supply chain. others are going to wonder whether the efficacy, cost and side effects don't suggest another course of treatment.

Sometimes I think there is enough of a market and universal enough of a function set that the normative behavior of making stuff super proprietary and super expensive is overcome. I think Tacos LWCO is a good example of that. Affordable and seems to overcome the leaking and cumbersome nature of earlier attempts i had installed and IT COSTS LESS! They figure they will sell enough units to make up the R&D.

So part of the reason I ask is that maybe some manufacturer has invested in a more generic digital temperature controller and run it through the paces and simulated a million cycles and gone to UL or whatever and made a nice enclosure more aimed at established trade practices and they charge 25 or 30 bucks for it instead of 10.

If somebody has worked out the enclosure and brought something into a mainline, i'd be the first to cue up, but when I see $70 to $100 a box or more and can get the similar functionalities sometimes more addressable for an order of magnitude cheaper I do go off the reservation.

Aside from asking here, I'll be walking the aisles looking for one at AHR if we don't get a blizzard that week -- not sure why they do it in the winter except that everybody is really interested at that time even if hopelessly busy.

As to what is actually going to be stocked, there is not one local wholesaler i've found here who has the Field Controls retrofit spill switch for steam temperatures (and don't ask me why they number their lower temp spills sequentially and then number the steam control by its temperature set). So am i supposed to order it from them and wait a couple weeks to a month until they have an order together or should i just go online and get it for the same price or cheaper from someone who will have to me with a couple days.

If i'm not hurrying and the pricing is similar i will choose the local supplier, but there is some stuff they don't stock or they are really out of whack on the mark up and I tend to think supporting that is not supporting efficiencies in the market.

I agree on the $ a minute thing and as you can see from my posts i put way too much opportunity cost into thinking about stuff - but that is my personality at work. if i wasn't thinking about this i'd be thinking about something else equally retentive and intellectually squirrel holeish.

brian