Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey! Has anyone tried to use heat cable/heat rope? The only stuff I could find by me is heat rope with a thermostat built in. It turns on at 38 and off at 50. That's not very good for heating reptile cages. So, I cut off the thermostat and reconnected the wires. However, now it doesn't generate heat. Does anyone understand how this stuff is wired? There's a 3 prong plug on one end, and 2 wires on the other. Any advice would be great. Thanks.
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My zoo
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1.1.0 Ball Pythons
1.3.0 Garter Snakes (2 have babies on the way)
0.0.1 Aggressive Bull Snake

Sounds like either you connected the wires incorrectly, or you didn't give it enough time to warm up.

Anyway, if it is the outdoor cable with the metal braid overwrap, that is where the green wire attaches to (GND). The black wire is the HOT wire (the one the thermostat breaks when the unit goes off) and the white wire is the NEUTRAL.

Without a pic or description of how you have it connected, that is all the info I have for now. I've done what you described (removed the thermostat) without issue. The stuff I had came from a mountain town and was used for water pipe freeze protection.

This is the outdoor stuff to prevent pipes from freezing. There's two wires that would wrap around the pipe. I connected the black wire to one and the white to the other and left the ground unconnected. I'm going to attach the green to the wire braid.

I'll take some pictures and post them if that would help. How does one post pictures by the way?

Thanks so much for your help
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My zoo
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1.1.0 Ball Pythons
1.3.0 Garter Snakes (2 have babies on the way)
0.0.1 Aggressive Bull Snake

Further looking at this here's what I have.

Coming from the plug it's straight forward, 3 wires, green, black and white. Now, coming from the heat cable side it gets complicated (for me at least). There's 2 black wires. Associated with each black wire is a white plastic "wire" wrapped with a thin filament of metal wire.
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My zoo
--------------------------
1.1.0 Ball Pythons
1.3.0 Garter Snakes (2 have babies on the way)
0.0.1 Aggressive Bull Snake

The "thin filament" is the heating wire. The braid I spoke of is on some heaters and is for mechanical strength. The braid wraps around the outer insulation of the heater. Your heater may not have a braid.

If you have a multimeter, do the following:

1. With the heater unplugged, measure Ohms from one black wire to the filament nearest it. Give it 10 seconds or so for the effect of the inductance to peter out. It should read 0 or 0.1 Ohm.

2. Now measure Ohms from the same black wire as above to the other filament near the other black wire. You should see a much higher resistance. If it is OPEN, then you may have cut through the heater module, which is where the filament contacts the first black wire. There is a way to fix this, but I'd have to see the heater in person to make that call.

The unit you have does not have polarity, which is why the wires are both the same color. If the results from 1 and 2 above are like I said, then you can hook up the power cord HOT (blk) wire to one of the heater wires, and the NEUTRAL (wht) wire from the power cord to the other heater wire. If the module contact point has been broken, then the unit will not heat or only the last module length will heat. Module lengths are often in 3ft intervals.
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Mark G
Montane snakes are the coolest...