I was wondering if heat tape must be connected to some sort of thermostat. As it is, I just wired mine up and have it without. The temp gun says its around 106 degrees. If I need to use a control device, can I use the kind that sell for around $30, where you simply turn the dial to the desired temp and then it turns the power on and off to keep the temp at that 'mark'. My question pertains to safety and not burning the house down.
Thanks,
Mike
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question on heat tape
MikeT
Jan 15, 2004 07:57 PM
Replies (4)
cv768
Jan 16, 2004 05:07 AM
Where are you getting this $30 control device???
I need a cheap rheostat...
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MikeT
Jan 16, 2004 08:12 AM
Thanks for no info! lol
I picked some up at reptile shows. You can find them at pretty much any reptile store. Yes I believe they are called rheostats.
Mike
WaGuy82
Jan 16, 2004 02:52 PM
I know Big Apple Herps have one that's supposed to be pretty good. I'd check there.
robyn@ProExotics
Jan 16, 2004 04:20 PM
hey Mike, the concern i have about heat tape is the variability of it...
if you just "run it", it tends to "pulse" quite a bit, where the heat fluctuates a lot. and i have certainly seen a number of cages get burnt or melted from uncontrolled heat tape, so i would most likely put a controller on it.
plain $6 rheostats aren't a good choice for heat tape (flex watt). they heat up HOT, and don't have a way to dissipate the heat. look for a higher caliber rheostat that has a heat sink built in to dissipate the heat build up. the ones we used (for a couple of years straight) were the size of a light switch, box and all, and had some nice metal fins. $20 or so...
we have since set up our heat tape sections (for rubbermaid snake racks, 20 feet long) on Ranco thermos like the Boaphile sells, and i like those a lot, from a safety and effectiveness point of view.
on a final note, from a large thermal mass point of view, we run a couple strips of 4 inch heat tape, about a foot long each, at the dirt line on our monitor troughs, and that is run full blast, but there is enough mass (1000 pounds or more of soil) there to dissipate the heat well there, so full blast is not a problem for that application.
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