Reptile & Amphibian Forums

im using 4inch flexwatt for my racks and the zoo med rheostat seems to blow chunks. are there any good dimmer switches at home depot or lowes anyone would request to help me with my problem?
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1.2 ball pythons
1.2 columbian boas
1.1 thayeri kings
1.1 mexican black kings
1.1 red african house snakes
1.0 grey-banded kingsnake(loma alta locality)
0.0.1 snow corn
0.0.1 ghost corn
0.0.1 blood red corn
1.0 hypo honduran milk
0.1 albino honduran milk
1.2 texas bulls
1.0 western hognose
1.0 cave dwelling rat
1.0 bairds rat
2.0 texas banded geckos
1.2 african fat-tail gecko
1.0 savanah monitor

I had bad experiences with the zoo med rheostat too. I then just went to home depot and got a plug in lamp dimmer. Works great. Cheap like $9.00.

The 300-watt plug-in dimmers work great, as long as the heater load is under 200 watts (yes, I said 200).
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Mark

>>im using 4inch flexwatt for my racks and the zoo med rheostat seems to blow chunks. are there any good dimmer switches at home depot or lowes anyone would request to help me with my problem?

You can buy lamp dimmers as suggested but I'm a bigger fan of custom built units. Such as Dave Collins posted example;

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1598372,1598372&key=2008

I myself do something similar, you just need to be a little electrical savvy but I assure you it's not hard and could prove a great project to learn.

Cheers
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Jeremy Payne
JB Reptile
Specializing in Boa Morph's

1.0 Snow "Kahl"
0.2 Triple Het Moonglow "Kahl"
0.1 Orange Tail Hypo Het Leopard
1.1 Double Het "Sharp" Snow
1.0 Ghost
0.1 Possible Super Hypo
0.1 DH Ghost
1.1 "Kahl" Albino
1.0 Hypomelenistic
1.3 Pastel Hypo
0.1 Suriname/Columbian cross
0.1 Anerthrystic

When I first got started and had only 1 rack that I built I used a dimmer to control 25 feet of 4 inch flexwatt. That's approximately 200 watts. I got a 600 watt dimmer from Home Depot. That worked but there is one flaw with using dimmers. They are not meant to be run 24/7. They will eventually turn off. You need to check your tape on a daily basis. If it goes off, turn the dial to the off position, wait a few seconds, and turn it back on. I just marked the dial and dimmer so I would put it back to the same setting. This may not seem like a big deal and I'm sure there are some forum readers that are of that opinion. Think about this because it did happen to me. Your temps are fine, you feed your snakes, and the dimmer goes off. A day or two later most if not all of your snakes are cold and regurge. That's why I say to check it daily.
A slightly more expensive option that is reasonable is the Alife rheostats. $20-$25 and once setup, they seem to work just fine.