"With either overhead heating or belly heat, how would one use a thermostat to keep the temperatures at optimum levels?"



Put the probe in an optimum location, silly. Ha! Ha! I'm just pickin' at ya, Vinny. Sorry, couldn't resist.







"Specifically, how would you position the heat sensing probe? If you put it on the floor of the cage (on the hot side, of course), the snake would shield it from the overhead heat, thus causing the temps to rise."



With overhead heat I tape my probes to a small block of wood that's aproximately 1-inch square, with the sensor being on the top of the block. I place the block on the outer limits of the basking area. With a 12ft snake coiled up in the basking area the sensor is within 1 - 2 degrees of the temperature in the dead center of the basking area. That's plenty close enough.



Easy way - Observe your snake coiled in the basking area and note where you can place the probe/sensor, just outside of its coils. Attach it to a scrap piece of wood or something to hold it off the floor. This will also make it a bit uncomfortable for the snake to lay on it. Having the basking area just slightly away from the end wall instead of right up against it gives a little leeway.





"If it's belly heat, the snake laying on top of the probe would trap heat in between the tape and it's belly, causing another mis-read and having the temps drop too low. At least that's the way it works (or doesn't work) in my head."



Bear with me as this reply could get a bit long-winded. There are several different ways used by various people to measure & controll belly heat temperatures. I'll tell you a few of those ways and let you decide which one to use.



First off, we should have a basking area larger than our snake's coiled area so the sensor could/should be placed just outside of the snake's general coiled area. Just like with the overhead heating placement I mentioned earlier. Any misreadings due to the snake laying on the sensor are usually quickly adjusted by either the snake getting out of the heat or it's body catching up to the desired temperature setting.



Some people place the sensor on the heat source itself and make micro-adjusments to the thermostat settings. This usually requires setting the thermostat to a temperature higher than the actual in-cage temperature. This is a fairly common practice in racks using heat tape, flexwatt, with people placing the sensor directly on the surface of the heat tape. The probe isn't usually placed in the same location that the snake will actually be laying, it may be several feet away but still on the same piece of heat tape.



I'm more particular. I want to know what the temperature is inside the cage, where my snake will be basking. That's why I'll place the probe outside of the snake's general coil position but still on the actual heated surface.



For my rack I set up a tub just like the ones my snakes are in, complete with the same number of layers of paper towels or newspaper, and I tape my sensor to the top of those paper towels or newspaper. The paper towels are also taped to the bottom of the tub or weighted down, just as if the weight of a snake were pushing them down. Every now & then I'll swap places with the sensor tub and one of the snake's tubs, giving me various reading points to ensure accuracy.



I'm not saying that they're the perfect & only way, but those are the things that have worked for me. I hope this helps.



Catch ya later!

HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,

this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:

Appalachian American





www.natures-signature.com

[ Show Entire Thread ]