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We currently heat our snake rack with rope lighting that produces 4 watts per foot of energy...(the lights are on dimmers to control the heat)

I recently found a much cheaper rope lighting but it only gives off 1.6 watts per foot of energy...I figure if I wired it through the rack twice maybe it would create enough heat??? I guess then it would be equal to 3.2 watts per foot???

Would it work to double the lighting up???

Sorry, it's just my electrical experiance is very limited.

Does anyone have experiance with rope lighting or any suggestions???
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Chris Vanderwees
REPTILE SALES AND INFORMATION
E-mail Me
1.2.0 Bearded Dragons
1.1.0 Crested Geckos
1.2.0 Veiled Chameleons
3.4.0 Corn Snakes
1.0.0 Tokay Geckos
1.2.0 California Kingsnakes
1.3.0 South Florida Kingsnakes
1.1.0 Albino Sonoran Gopher Snakes
1.4.0 Leopard Geckos
0.1.0 Green Iguanas

Recap: - the higher-wattage heat rope produces more heat in less rope area. The lower-wattage rope produces less heat per rope area, but you can double the area by making two runs.

Think of it this way: One 40 watt bulb gets hotter than a 20 watt bulb. If you use two 20 watt bulbs, you have less extreme temps but over a wider area - the 40 watts is more spread out over a larger area and less intense over that area as opposed to a 40 watt bulb itself (higher temps over a smaller area).

So, the answer is this: making 2 runs of the lower wattage heat rope gives you almost the same wattage as the larger but spread out over a larger area. Is this OK with your animals? Depends on the high temps you want to maintain, but I would say for kings, as long as the back of the tubs hit 82-84 degrees you are fine. If you insulate the rack back with styrene foam insulation, it will help keep more heat in.

The last paragraph is somewhat incorrect - 2 runs of lower wattage rope has alot of area heated but with less watt density.

Another analogy: 11-inch-wide Flexwatt is 20 watts/ft. There is also a higher watt density Flexwatt (also 11-inch-wide) at 40 watts/ft. Will two runs of the 20 watts/ft stuff heat as much as one run of the 40 watt stuff? Well, two runs will heat twice the area but to a lesser temp. Is the lesser temp sufficient? Depends on your rack design, ambient room temp, insulation, rack material, etc.

Thanks, that cleared thing up for me...

The back of my tubs usually sit at different temps depending on how high in the rack they are...EXAMPLE: The top racks usually sit at 93 in the hot spot of the tub...(much too hot)...so I hook a dimmer switch to the higher shelves to bring the temps down to about 83-85.

The bottom shelves sit at 83 degrees without a dimmer. The middle ones usually stay constant if I dim the tope shelves.

These racks all use the 4 watt rope lighting...I can only seem to find the 1.6-1.9 watt rope lighting now that christmas time is over...but it's really cheap...so I think I'll double it up and check the temps...thanks for the help!
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Chris Vanderwees
REPTILE SALES AND INFORMATION
E-mail Me
1.2.0 Bearded Dragons
1.1.0 Crested Geckos
1.2.0 Veiled Chameleons
3.4.0 Corn Snakes
1.0.0 Tokay Geckos
1.2.0 California Kingsnakes
1.3.0 South Florida Kingsnakes
1.1.0 Albino Sonoran Gopher Snakes
1.4.0 Leopard Geckos
0.1.0 Green Iguanas