Heating element for honey cabinet

[keith pierce]

Currently I use a 60watt bulb in a large chest freezer and it works just fine. It takes about 3 days to warm two 80lb buckets back to a liquid. I have an electrician coming to put in a new fuse board and want him to fix up my freezer some sort of heating element and a control stat that is more accurate. Any suggestions.

 

[Russel]

Tube heaters and a Lucky Reptile Thermo Control PRO II as posted not so long ago.

Russ

 

[Les]

Hi Keith
I use a ‘Geko’ digital thermostat they are for reptile tanks – it goes up to 50c and very accurate.

 

[will]

Hi I use an egg incubator element it is much more accurate than a bulb and safer, I got
100w one made a cabinet to hold 2 30lb buckets, Th*** do one but I got mine from a company that does poultry
Will

 

[Finman]

.
He is a heater with thermostat. Price is £ 15.........600 W

Then you get/bye a PC ventilator.

I have a warming cabinet where I put supers before extraction. Those are handy to warm up the honey.

 

[RogueDrone]

I use on of these http://www.ascott-dairy.co.uk/acatalog/Poultry_Incubator_DIY_Kits.html
and a digital thermometer from FleaBay hold temp within 0.2 C

 

[meetballuk]

i made my own incubator with the thermostats from maplin. super cheap and easy to motify.

 

[thedaidai]

I use on of these http://www.ascott-dairy.co.uk/acatalog/Poultry_Incubator_DIY_Kits.html
and a digital thermometer from FleaBay hold temp within 0.2 C

RogueDrone,
What's the temp range of the ascott kit please?
Cheers
thedaidai

 

[dpearce4]

i made my own incubator with the thermostats from maplin. super cheap and easy to motify.

Interesting can you give me the product codes as when i asked in my local shop they didnt have a clue.

cheers

 

[will]

RogueDrone,
What's the temp range of the ascott kit please?
Cheers
thedaidai

That's were I got mine from and it works great temp will hold at 49-50c if you want it to
Will

 

[itma]

You can get a good "temperature controller" for well under £20 delivered from China via eBay.
See for example the STC-1000 - specimen example http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Digi...ial_Automation_Control_ET&hash=item3f149ade57

This includes a relay capable of switching 2.5kw.
And it has the smarts to control refrigeration as well (for when you brew lager or make cheese, for example) - refrigerator compressors don't like being switched on/off/on too quickly ...

For use in a freezer, 100 watts of heat should be more than enough.
Excess heating power simply makes the control less stable.
Reptile terrarium heaters should be ideal. Greenhouse ones may be a bit big and/or powerful.

An ex-computer fan, blowing from the heater towards the temperature measurement probe will help make the control more accurate.
A low voltage fan (5 or 12 volts) driven from a transformer fat plug ("wall wort") would be a good safe move. Larger, slower fans are quieter! You don't need or want a tiny "cpu cooler" type.

Try and make all electrical connections outside the freezer chamber - thinking of cleaning, not just spillage.
Safest thing is to connect everything to a single socket strip (so the same earth), and connect the socket strip to the mains through a £5 RCD "safety cut-out" plug.

 

[craigavonb]

heater

That's were I got mine from and it works great temp will hold at 49-50c if you want it to
Will

A few years back when buying supers from a retired beeman he give me his heater. A glavanised water tank complete with 2 immersion heaters, the tank holds 4 buckets. brilliant

 

[VEG]

Hi I use an egg incubator element it is much more accurate than a bulb and safer, I got
100w one made a cabinet to hold 2 30lb buckets, Th*** do one but I got mine from a company that does poultry
Will

That's the same ad the one I use

 

[keith pierce]

thanks all