Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I been looking for some heat pads on the net
i know one brand claims to keep it at 100 degrees
now that seems a little too hot for me. when you plug a heat pad into a thermostat do you need a thermostat for each heat pad or can you plug several pads into one heat pad? i am confused about this some of the thermostats are expensive.
just wander whats the best heat pad on the market and the best thermostat for the controlling the temperatures. bianca what type of heat pads do you use i checked out the sites you sent me via email

thanks for your time,
john

Yes you can plug in more than one heat pad. Say you have 10 heat pads, each pad is 7 watts. If you plug all 10 in, you are consuming 70 watts. All the thermostats available will easily run 70 watts.

There is only one probe on a thermostat. You must securely tape or silicon this probe to a heat pad or a spare plastic box over the heat pad. If the probe is moved away from the heater, it will sense a lack of heat, and the thermostat will command the pads ON full.

I like the Exo-Terra heat pads alot. They are less expensive than similar pads from Cobra and work great. They don't get as hot as some heat pads.
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Mark

Running heat pads with just a thermostat worries me. If the thermostat fails for some reason, the heat pad may end up cranking wide open. Think about regulating the power supplied to heating pad(s) with a dimmer or other rheostatic device. With heating and air-conditioning, most houses are at a pretty constant temperature. If you have temperature probes installed you can easily make fine adjustments as necessary.

Opinions differ greatly on this subject, I just think it's safer for you and your animals. Make sure there is some airflow at the pad so heat can dissipate.
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Tim

would a timer on the heat pad and the thermostat help any at all?

A timer is a good way to provide a cool down at night if you want one.
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Tim

with timers can you plus more than one heat pad into to them or do you have to use a seperate timer for each heat pad

Look on the back of the timer you will use. Somewhere there should be something listing the maximum total wattage that you can plug into it. So long as the combined wattage of whatever you plug into it stays below that number, you are OK. Two heat pads shouldn't even come to 100 wats, and most devices are good for at least a few hundred or more so you are safe.
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1SW
3.3 California Kings
1.0 Bearded Dragon
?.? Who knows...

Timers would be good if you want to cool down the cage at night(not really a nessecity), but using a timer will not allow you to control the heat, to say 88 degrees.

Go to Home Depot and ask one of the guys in the lighting section for a dimmer plug that is used to dim reading lamps. They are like 10-15 bucks if I remember, and they will allow you to set the heat pads at whatever temp you need. If you want to use a timer to turn it off at night on top of that, just plug the dimmer plug into a timer and there you go...
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1SW
3.3 California Kings
1.0 Bearded Dragon
?.? Who knows...