Problems with new-to-me Brinsea Octagon 10

[Hennyetta]

I bought a used Brinsea Octagon 10 on Ebay, and it arrived today. I cleaned in and plugged it in to make sure it was working okay. The light came on, and later started blinking (I didn't notice when it started blinking so I don't know what temp it started doing that) like it's supposed to when it reaches the correct temperature. When I checked it later, it was at 100-101, but my two digital thermometer/hygrometers from Wal-mart read 104 and 106, and the glass Brinsea thermometer kept climbing, too. I adjusted the dial, and the temp on the digital ones came down a little (they take a while to recover, though) and the glass one went down to 97. I decided to unplug the thing and start over, but now the light comes on, starts blinking wayyy before 101 degrees is reached on the glass thermometer, and shuts off completely at 92 degrees, whereupon the temperature begins to fall, and the incubator never come back on. A couple times when I unplugged and plugged it back in, the light wouldn't come on at all.

I'm going to contact the seller and see what they have to say about it, but I thought I'd post here, too, and see if anyone here has any advice.

 

[Hennyetta]

Okay, I spoke too soon. The light did come back on (blinking), maybe when the temp dropped to 90? Anyway, it's back on now, and seems to be holding the temperature steadily at 91 on the glass thermometer, and 97 on the digital ones.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that near the top of the glass thermometer, there is a little strip of blue, like some of the liquid separated from the rest and got stuck up there. Not sure if it's supposed to be like that or not.

 

[Hennyetta]

So I fiddled with the dial, turning it up until the light stayed on steadily. The temp in the glass thermometer would rise a couple of degrees or so, then the light would start blinking again, so I turned the dial up until the light was steady, etc, and kept doing that until the temperature reached a little over 101. The incubator kept the temperature steadily for over an hour, at which point both the digital ones read 109. So, I conducted an experiment with a digital candy thermometer and a digital medical thermometer. I put warm water in a cup, with the the candy thermometer in there, adding or taking out hot water as needed until the candy thermometer read 102. Then I turned the medical thermometer on and stuck it in the water. By then the candy thermometer had dropped to 101 (it only reads in whole degrees). The medical thermometer reached 100.4. So then I tested the glass Brinsea thermometer, and it read just a hair under 100 degrees. So, it's looking like the Brinsea one is reasonably accurate, just reads a degree or so low, give or take. I guess I can just figure the Walmart thermo/hygros are junk, at least at those temperatures!

I don't know if this will help anyone or not, but I thought I'd post what I ended up doing. Hopefully when I plug it back in tomorrow to check it, everything will be as it should be and I won't have to contact the Ebay seller!