Yes, dimmers are PWM controllers. They are great for heat tape, heat pads and incandescent lights.

My current setup for under cage heating uses low wattage heat cable that at full power will not damage the cage or be too hot to kill the animal. Then I use a dimmer in series with an ON/FF controller. Like you said, I set the dimmer so the ON/OFF controller doesn't cycle very much. A watt meter would sure be handy here, thanks for the suggestion.

Certainly on warm days, the heater will be warmer because the dimmer setting doesn't change unless I manually change it. Snakes are very good at thermoregulating, so I do not care about exact temps. The snake can move around as needed, that is what they do so well in nature.

For incubator, I use a proportional, because eggs can't move around..
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Mark

[ Hide Replies ]

• Is a proportional thermostat safer? - rudykirk, Sat Oct 4 16:06:00 2008
• Absolutely!!!! - rainbowsrus, Sun Oct 5 00:30:06 2008
• RE: Absolutely!!!! - Bighurt, Sun Oct 5 12:43:25 2008
• RE: Absolutely!!!! - caz223, Mon Oct 6 01:31:08 2008
• RE: Absolutely!!!! - BobS, Mon Oct 6 11:15:29 2008
• Solid state components fail too! - caz223, Mon Oct 6 11:40:56 2008
• RE: Solid state components fail too! - BobS, Mon Oct 6 12:06:07 2008
• RE: Absolutely!!!! - caz223, Mon Oct 6 12:57:50 2008
• UPS ?......... - BobS, Mon Oct 6 13:28:40 2008
• Uninterrupted Power Supply - Bighurt, Mon Oct 6 17:28:42 2008
• Thanks np - BobS, Mon Oct 6 20:56:45 2008
• ARS racks - caz223, Mon Oct 6 22:02:53 2008
• RE: Nice responses - markg, Mon Oct 6 13:45:46 2008
• More.... - rainbowsrus, Mon Oct 6 17:34:29 2008
• RE: More.... - caz223, Mon Oct 6 22:28:52 2008
• RE: Rule of thumb - markg, Mon Oct 6 13:58:01 2008
• RE: Rule of thumb - caz223, Mon Oct 6 22:36:26 2008
• RE: Rule of thumb - caz223, Mon Oct 6 22:58:32 2008
• kill-a-watt - caz223, Mon Oct 6 23:04:46 2008
• They call them dimmer switches.... - caz223, Mon Oct 6 23:20:44 2008
• RE: They call them dimmer switches.... - markg, Tue Oct 7 12:39:07 2008