I'm going to be converting two racks from cable belly heat to flexwatt or UTH pads.

My first option and the easiest is to use individual heat pads, 6x17, attached to the back panel on the inside of each shelf. Each shelf is 17 inches deep and 23.5 inches wide and 6 3/8 inches tall. I would then use two surge strips to connect the 10 pads and plug those into a Helix or Alife controller. I would also attach a 3/8 inch thick piece of rigid insulation on outside of the backpanel to help push the heat forward toward the boxes and not escape out the back panel. The boxes insert all the way into the shelf and will be about 1 inch away from the heat pads. I need the boxes to reach 88 degrees with one rack, ball pythons, and 80-85 degrees in the second rack which has colubrids.

The issue is that I am not a fan of back heat. In the past, with my first plastic racks, I lost too much heat out the back. I had to use 2 inch rigid insulation to stabilize the temps.



My second option is to use flexwatt on each shelf, wired in parallel. I need 10 pieces of flexwatt, 24 inches long, and would use the 3 or 4 inch flexwatt. Ten pairs of metal connectors and 10 pairs of plastic insulators per rack. I would place the flexwatt about 3 inches in from the back panel on each shelf. I would use foil tape attached to the clear plastic edge of the flexwatt to hold it in place. This would give me sufficient belly heat to get my two racks to the desired temps. Here's where I have a question and I'm not sure what to do. I do not want to use a router and make a groove for the flexwatt. I also do not want the boxes to come in direct contact with the flexwatt because it would eventually wear through. I have seen heat panels used on freedom breeder type racks and they appear to have flexwatt attached directly to galvanized sheet metal. Can I place a thin piece of galvanized metal over my flexwatt without creating an electrical hazard? The flexwatt would be sandwiched between the plastic shelf and the sheet metal. I have seen and experienced flexwatt shock when it was sandwiched between two layers of foil tape which obviously does conduct. It gave you a small shock depending on how the dimmer was set.

Any feedback from experience with this would be helpful.

Thanks

John Q

[ Hide Replies ]

• Covering Flexwatt instead of routing a . - John Q, Thu Feb 11 11:02:02 2010
• Why the shock - markg, Thu Feb 11 14:02:05 2010
• Rack options - markg, Thu Feb 11 15:09:30 2010