# Microclimate Prime 2 review



## _simon_

There's very little in the way of reviews or how to set these thermostats up so I hope this helps people.










Lets start with what the unit looks like. Quite simply a black box with a power lead, 3 trailing leads and 3 probes on very long cables. You also get a USB cable and a quick start guide which can also be downloaded from here: http://www.microclimate.co.uk/downloads/PRIME.pdf There's also a brief software guide here: http://www.microclimate.co.uk/downloads/PRIME SOFTWARE.pdf










Front of the unit. As you can see the display is fairly small so cannot display much information at once. You can manually scroll via the buttons on the unit or you can turn on the scrolling option in the software so that it will scroll through all the temperatures and power outputs.









Back of the unit. 









The other sides are plain black


















Next you'll want to go to the Microclimate website and click on download prime pc software Prime 2
Extract the files go to Drivers -> Driver Installation Tool and then if you have 32 bit windows it's x86 or if 64 bit windows it's x64 and then run MCP2200DriverInstallationTool.exe

If you're lucky that'll work! If not then you'll be wanting to speak to the very helpful Tim at Microclimate to talk you through the installation. You can get hold of him via their main number 01902 895351. Unfortunately on my 64bit Windows 8 it did not work and Tim talked me through some fiddling in Device Manager. 

You'll also want to install the Prime Setup software that's in the same folder you downloaded. On the same page you downloaded the software there's also a link to download the firmware updater which you'll want to do and install. Plug the USB cable in, plug the unit into the mains and then run the software and if everything went ok you should now be looking at a screen like this: I've already set mine up so yours won't say ambient, basking, lighting.










Now it's actually quite straight forward to understand the options but I'll help you out a bit.

I won't go through all the options but will go through what I have set.

On this status screen you're seeing a summary of what the Prime 2 is currently set to. The top box is your time in 24HR format. Go ahead and type into the box to change it.

Y, B and R are your outputs and correspond to the coloured band on the probe cables and trailing cables (Yellow, Blue & Red). Y and B can be used as dimmer or pulse stats whilst R is either an on/off stat or a timer.

So on my status screen it's displaying (Y)Setpoint 27.00 C this is the temperature that I want the ceramic bulb on that output to be at. The (Y)Temp 24.07 is the actual temperature at the moment that the probe is reading for the ceramic bulb and the (Y)Output 100.00% is how much power is being fed to the ceramic bulb.

The next tab along (Ambient) for you will say Y









Pretty straight forward. It's set to heating with multiple temperatures/times (see window on the right) and as I'm using a ceramic I've selected Pulse.

The ramp time is the time in minutes that the thermostat will take to change the temperature so that you have the option of gradual temperature changes. I've selected the changes to take place over a 30 minute time period.

The boxes underneath - alarm delay sets how long before the alarm should go off after hitting a temperature alert. Minimum is the lowest temperature alert before the alarm goes off and maximum is the highest temperature alert before the alarm goes off. Differential I am unsure of at the moment, the blurb is too vague.

Now the box on the right of the screen comes up when multi is selected and allows you to set 8 different temperatures. You simply set the time in 24HR and then the temperature.

So I have set mine as follows the idea being that it warms up fairly quick during the morning, hits midday and then gradually reduces heat into the evening.

20C until 08:00
22C until 09:00
24C until 12:00
27C until 15:00 (this gives me 3 hours at peak ambient heat 12:00 till 15:00)
26C until 16:00
25C until 17:00
24C until 18:00
22C until 19:00

And then it reverts back to the top so it'll maintain 20C from 19:00 until 08:00

The next tab along (Basking) for you will say B.









I've got this output connected to a basking lamp and I've set it up the same way as the previous output except being a light emitting bulb I have set it to Dimming and the temperatures are different.

The next tab along (Lighting) for you will say R.









I'm using this as a timer for my UV lighting. So the mode is fixed and I want it to come on in the day and off at night. No need to touch the boxes underneath. On the right it's simply set to OFF for night, day starts at 08:00 and I want the output to turn ON and then Night starts at 19:00 (loop back to Night = OFF)

The last tab along is Options









Here you can rename your thermostat. Useful if you have more than one. You can change the tab names from Y,B,R to whatever you want - this change is also reflected on the digital display of the unit. Scrolling tells the unit to display the same info as in status but in a scrolling format on the digital display screen of the unit. Units lets you swap between C and F.

Logging period is the time in minutes that it will log data on every output i.e. every 60 minutes. 

Contrast changes the contrast on the digital display screen.

At the top of the screen - Data Logging will display something like this:









That's pretty much it at least for the settings I have selected. To make life easier for fiddling with settings and looking at the data logging I have swapped the USB cable the unit comes with for a much longer one that allows me to have it permanently connected so all I need to do is fire up the software when I want to.


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## bigd_1

nice one going to try set my up this weekend if i get time and thats helped me out :2thumb:


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## _simon_

bigd_1 said:


> nice one going to try set my up this weekend if i get time and thats helped me out :2thumb:


Great  what confused me when I first opened the software was the seemingly random numbers in the time boxes. Couldn't find an answer as to what measurement of time was being used so I just cleared the boxes and tried 24HR and it worked.


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## wezza309

Will be using mine sometime soon and this is a good review of a good piece of kit thanks


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## glowgreen

*length of cables*

hi first of all thanks for the review ots the only one i could find , just wonderin if you know how long the canles for probes plugs etc are


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## GECKO MICK

Good reveiw,thanks.:2thumb:


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## rex123

*prime 2*

Hey mate great review. Helped a lot. I just got the prime2
Im a bit concerned about something
When I have my basking light plugged in
And set my temp to say 28 with the unit set on dimming
Thermostat when it reaches the set temperature the
Unit starts to make quite a loud buzzing noise
It sounds like a loud electronic buzzing. Its quiet annoying. 
Dose anyone else's prime2 do this
Or maybe mine is broken. Thanks for any help


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## _simon_

Defiantly not had that from mine, I'd contact microclimate as it sounds like something is wrong. 

Contact Us


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## hblake

Can it be set up by laptop and then be unplugged and left to its own devices? I'm seriously thinking about getting one!


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## bigd_1

hblake said:


> Can it be set up by laptop and then be unplugged and left to its own devices? I'm seriously thinking about getting one!


yep ones you set it up on the laptop just pull the lead out of the laptop and thats it set to what you set it to


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## hblake

bigd_1 said:


> yep ones you set it up on the laptop just pull the lead out of the laptop and thats it set to what you set it to


Brilliant! roll on payday...!


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## hblake

Anyone reckon the data logging function will just log forever if i set it to 1 minute intervals? or would it start to delete old data after a certain point?


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