Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have used heat tape with a simple thermostat for a while, but since adding to my collection i reorganized it all and needed to add a two new sets of heat tape. i bought a new thermostat for one and its working perfectly as expected. the other i plugged it inline with a slide dimmer switch... and its not working at all. the substrate is scorching in the high 90's and the dimmer is as low as it can go. what the heck am i doing wrong?? its a generic dimmer that i got at home depot.

Scott

Are you sure you have the dimmer on LOW and not HI? Are you sure you wired it correctly (in-line with the HOT lead or alternatively in-line with the NEUTRAL lead)?

Home Depot sells alot of crapola. Could be that particular dimmer is bad. It happens. All it takes is one short and your dimmer is toast. And when they fail, they fail ON most of the time.

yup, about 99.99% sure that its on the lowest setting cause the indicator light is almost off its so dim. its a pre-wired unit.. all i did was plug the tape inline with the dimmer. maybe i'll pick up a new unit and see what happens. thanks.

Scott

ok, out of curiosity to markg's response, i decided to go do some fiddling. i feel really stupid now. when i slid the dimmer to 'high', the heat tape went immediately cold. how counter intuitive that the brighter the indicator light, the less the electric flow. is that the way they all work??

well, at least all is well now and i'm quite happy, if just a wee bit embarassed. thank you markg lol

Scott

I know what dimmers you speak of.. the table-top ones. That reverse logic with the LED is confusing until you get used to it.

I figured the light went dim as the power was being used up by the heat tape. Kind of like a powerful appliance dimming my reptile lights (ie my Vacuum). It happens. I label my dimmers with a " " hi and a "-" for low.