While I do not disagree with any of the replies, yeah they can all fail etc.



One point I do have in contention is the original post was about a proportional vs a simple on/off. Not a more elaborate setup with dual and quad rancos with UPS etc. I totally agree a dual Ranco is clearly safer than a single unit.



IMO THE SAFEST setup is one with redundancy AND monitoring by the owner. I don't care how many t-stats you use, if you don't periodically check and verify your temps, than any failure you do have could go un-noticed.





Lastly was my point about larger temp swings with on/off. Turned on at full power any heat element will put off more therms than at some percentage of full power. IMo that can easily lead to higher short term temps in the area of the heat element before the actual sensed temp rises to shut off level.









>>Proportional thermostats by design are solid state and no mechancal contacts to "stick" in the on position. All that I know of are programed to shut off power to the output on any type of fail situation.

>>

>>Also, besides the obvious catastrophic stuck on fail mode mechanicals can have, They tend to have more intense temp swings because the heat element gets full power until the stat probe reaches shut off temp.
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Thanks,





Dave Colling



www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com







0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)

0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)



LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:

26.49 BRB

20.21 BCI

And those are only the breeders



lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

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