You can use any and all for heat pads. In fact, lamps are harder on the thermostats because of the surge current that occurs with a cold bulb. Heat pads are a breeze.



You can do both dimmer and thermostat and get the fine-tuning benefit of the dimmer with the overtemp limit protection of the thermostat. Here is how:



1) First use a thermostat that has a relay output. You know it uses a relay if when the heater turns ON or OFF, you here a little "click" in the thermostat. I think all thermostats under $100 use relays because relays are less expensive. I have one of those A-Life jobs that looks exactly like Zilla 500, it is relay.



2) Use a dimmer that has a plug for the wall and an outlet for the heater. Plug the heater into the dimmer outlet.



3) Plug the dimmer into the thermostat output. Now the theromstat will turn the dimmer (and heater) off at the setpoint, and you can use the dimmer to dial in a more appropriate power level to the heater.
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Mark

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