Wiring Flexwatt Heating

This was a write I read when I first started wiring flexwatt. I haven't burned my house down yet, so I guess that means I'm doing it right?

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/flexwire.shtml

Clay has a few good DIY project's for reptile keeper's...

And yes if your house is stil not crispy you more than likely wired the flexwatt correctly...

( although Yes I know it's NO laughing matter )

flexwatt is frustrating... ours has always been prewired when we purchased it so all we had to do was put it in but I fear he's doing something wrong? Some of our tubs get warmer than the temp its set to and others don't get to that temp? we tried flipping the tape over and thought that seemed to work but our bottom tub is still reading cooler than all the rest... it really pisses me off. just sayin.. lol

We even thought "oh well maybe the tape was bad" so the guy we bought the first set of tape from gave us another roll.... then we purchased a roll from someone else and still having the problem... I am starting to think it is operator failure lol.

There could be two problems.

The first, where is the probe for the thermostat placed? I recommend placing it directly on the heat tape itself, around the middle shelf of the rack. If it's in the tubs, you could end up with funny/inaccurate readings.

Does your snake room have a ceiling fan? On all of my racks, the tubs get cooler as they get closer to the ground. Moving my snake room to a room that had a ceiling fan has helped alot. Also, if you place your racks 6" off an exterior wall and at least 2" off the ground, it will help circulate the air and cool spots.

they are 5 tub racks, probe on heat tape of 4th tub down.

No fan in the room and not on exterior walls, they are about a foot off the ground on makeshift stands he made with 2x4s. the temps on the helixs are set on 93-94ish? our bottom tub reads about 86 with the temp gun. So we put our cheapest ball down there just in case something happens...

sometimes I think it is operator failure though.. maybe we should get a fan put up in the room...

my house is small.. it has 2 bedrooms, a living room and an eat in kitchen... so we took half of the living room and have made it into the snake area with the racks since there was no other option on where to put them until the lease is up and we can get into a bigger space in a few months. we have two 5 tub racks on an interior wall and one 3 tub rack on the exterior wall but that one is about a foot away from the wall. It's only the one rack that is closest to the middle of the room on the interior wall that seems to give us the most problems...

How do you have the flex watt wired??

I personally didn't do it... it was all prewired when we got it and we just had to run it in the slots on the rack system... Every tub is at the desired temperature except the bottoms so I am thinking it is just because they are so much lower to the ground??

There's two ways to wire the flex watt the proper names are on the tip of my tounge but Im drawing a blank... Yes being lower to the ground can cause the drop in temp's... However I found out with my rack having the flex watt wired together ( two cord's for a 7 lvl 11 tub rack ) one for the top few shelve's and the second for the bottom helped me keep my temps stable from top to bottom also via becuase the top's 3 inch and the bottoms are 11 inch but it helped me as well with another rack vs having the flex watt wired individually... If that make's any sense if not Pm me and I'll find the info and explain it in more detail

So far it sounds like it makes sense. We also put a little under tank pad on the bottom of the rack and that seemed to bring her temperature up closer to the desired temp. Again though we put our cheapest ball in the bottom just in case something happens... our 3 tub rack that we ordered heat tape from Reptile Basics is perfectly fine and we havent had any issues with that... just the two 5 tubs, the bottom tubs are the problem ones.

One thing I forgot to mention, if all shelves are ran off of the same thermostat, you can retard the higher shelves with a rheostat. Higher wattage to the lower shelves will cause them to heat slightly faster.

LMAO when I first read it I thought you were saying I was a retard.. i was like welll duhhhh ahaha.

We might have to look into one of those then. So far the UTH that we put on the bottom of the rack works for us...

LOL