Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently bought a big apple herp t stat at a show and have 2 homemade wooden racks with heat cable I would like to hook up to it. The t-stat has a night drop cable option but was not included. I was told by a friend not to use a household timer on these. My q's are where would proper probe placement be? How can I have proper day/night temps with no timer? Any other advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
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2.3 BCI
0.1 BP
0.1 Dumeril's Boa
1.0 Woma
1.0 BRB

I have two of those, and I used a timer (the inexpensive mechanical types) with one of them with no problem. Contact Big Apple for details.

As for proble placement, very important. The best place functionally is in the cage (or a spare box with similar substrate) right over the heater.

Alternative placement can be touching the heat cable itself close to the box as possible. This way, the probe touches the heater but is also exposed to air, giving an average temp reading. When the air is cold, the temp on the cable will actually be a bit higher than setpoint. When the air in the room is warm, the temp of the heater will be at setpoint. Kind of a nice result.
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Mark