Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have no idea....

what should i use? anyone that has one let me know.

Not sure what you are asking. Dimmers and rheostats are essentially the same thing. You can purchase a rheostat but for less money, you can purchase a dimmer switch at any Lowes or Home Depot.

Good luck,
Bart

I have used Dimmers rated for 600 watts from Home Depot and Lowes. They work but there is one major drawback. They are really not designed to be on 24/7 which results in them turning off. I just got in the habit of checking it first thing in the a.m., when I got home from work, and just before going to bed. I would just slide my hand between two boxes and touch the flexwatt.
I have not had this type of problem with rheostats sold for reptile use. I have not invested in the higher quality devices such as helix or johnson, etc. I use the less expensive models and calibrate by using multiple thermometers in the boxes. When the temps inside of the box are at the desired level, I mark the dial with a thin piece of tape indicating the high point. I do this a couple of times, fine tuning. I started doing this because probes in the boxes can moved around, even when taped down. My probes are outside the box, near the heat source. I did the same thing with the dimmers, worked fine for me.

Do you have your dimmer in-line with the thermostat?

I have never heard of the 600W dimmers going off by themselves. I've never experienced that except when the dimmer setup is plugged into an ON/OFF thermostat.

If you have them on a thermostat, and the thermostat opens the connection, then the dimmer will often stay off even when the thermostat puts power back on it. That has to do with the semiconductor trigger on the triac in the dimmer.
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Mark

Mark there was a discussion about this on another website forum. Evidently there are products out there that do shut off after a set period of time. Sort of like the heat pads you buy nowadays that only stay on for an hour or whatever it is.

I'm guessing this was at least two years ago, maybe more. I remember reading the thread around time time I got my Vision racks and needed a dimmer. I specifically shopped for a (non-reptile) product that was listed in the thread as not shutting off automatically.

To be completely fair, I have never experienced a dimmer shutting off after 12 hours, or whatever it is. I have only read about it from online hobbyist anecdotes.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

Thank you Chris for that info. I had no idea about that. (Sorry to the original poster for questioning your statement!)

I suppose the timed output was devised to be an energy-savings feature rather than a safety feature.
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Mark

No thermostat, just a direct connect to the flexwatt. I used a few thermometers on different shelves of the rack to determine what gave me the right temps. The room is on the cool side but fairly constant temps. Also, the rack was built for boxes with the lids on. This allowed me to maintain temps and humidity using less electricity. The rack worked well other than the dimmer going off a couple times a year. I no longer use that rack or rely on dimmers only but it served me well for the first few years of enjoying this hobby.

Check out this website. This has excellent cage building tips and pictures of construction of several projcts. I only just discovered this site today! Hey fantasyxbabygirl (I never really took that name in completely until I had to type it...) Check out the article title-
"Thermostats Vs. Dimmer Switches". Really a great site.

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/dim_vs_thermo.shtml

arbreptiles.com

I think it answered a question I had further up the board!