Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just finished building my second rack and installed the 3 inch flexwatt and did the crimp connections myself. I plugged the tape in w/out thermostat ( no animals in bins ) to make sure that it worked right and I got a huge difference in temps between shelves. After 1 hour of heating the top shelf was only 92 deg., middle was 102 deg and the shelf directly under the middle was 110 deg!!! I am assuming there is a wiring/crimping issue here. Has anyone had this problem before?
Thanks
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1.0 het albino ball
1.0 norm ball
0.3 norm ball
0.1 snow corn
1.0 butter corn
1.0 norm corn
1.0 southern plains rat
1.0 striped Cali king
1.0 western hog

I have experienced a similar problem. All my Flexwatt is the same wattage and cut the same exact length. I have each level of my racks heated with separate strips of Flexwatt.
Why the temperature difference I don’t know but I would suggest heating the levels separately with a good Thermostat.
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Steve Markevich

Updated Daily! SerpentsDen.Com

The point of the thermostat is to conrol the amount of electricity going through the heat tape. Without it, the tape can reach temps of 120 degrees...

Just because all the strips are the same wattage DOESN'T mean the same amount of current is being pumped through it.

Wire all your flexwatt to one chord, plug it in to a thermostat and then try it again.
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-Man fears the beast in the Wolf because he does not understand the beast within himself.

That is what I did. I bought lamp cord cut the female end off and wired the cord with the male end to a FW strip on the top shelf and then connected each successive strip together with a length of the same type of lamp cord. I did do a variation in that I didn't wire both ends of the strip of FW. I ran the wire from the strip above and the strip below into the same connector so that all wires are on one side of the rack. The other end of the FW strip just has electrical covering.
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1.0 het albino ball
1.0 norm ball
0.3 norm ball
0.1 snow corn
1.0 butter corn
1.0 norm corn
1.0 southern plains rat
1.0 striped Cali king
1.0 western hog

In other words you wired it in parallel. Try wiring it in series and see if that makes a difference. I have all of my flexwatt wired in series and I haven't experienced that problem.

I tried running 5 shelves with one Helix DBS 1000 and plugged the 5 separate lines into one connection leading to the Helix and still had a 5-10 degree variance from shelf to shelf except for the shelf where the probe was.
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Steve Markevich

Updated Daily! SerpentsDen.Com

I had a similar problem as you mentioned, and eventually fixed it with running serial (as mentioned earlier). Just wanted to give you a hint that made my life easier, use quick disconnect clips on the ends of the flew watt. This way, you dont have to crimp and recrimp the ends of the metal clips, or cut the wire and splice it. With this method, I can add levels or move things around how ever. Good luck,
~Johnny

Do you have a pic of that type of connection?

Thanks
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Steve Markevich

Updated Daily! SerpentsDen.Com

Here ya go, I photoshoped up a little diagram for you. Now, I am no electrician by any means, so I can't explain why one works better than the other... Maybe someone else here can step up with that one.

Ok, in series. I have hooked up lighting like that but never gave any consideration to hooking up Flexwatt in series as I’ve always hooked mine up Parallel.

Thank you for taking the time in Photoshop to show me an explanation, nice work there!
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Steve Markevich

Updated Daily! SerpentsDen.Com

Sure thing man, I am still trying to get everything just the way I like it myself..

~Johnny