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Heat cables?

rainkeltoia

rainkeltoia

New member
I've been thinking about using heat cables instead of the heat mats, and I'm curious what wattage I'd want and also what brands seem to work the best. I'm not sure what wattage does in correlation to amount of heat produced.
I have 2 enclosures I'd be using them on, one is a sterilite tub and the other is an exo terra viv (pretty large, I think its 36" long and 18" wide)

Thanks!
 
I'll let someone with more experience opine, but I am testing some out now. I have 50 watt and 150 watt Zoo Med cables for a future hatchling rack. The rack I am using them in has grooves cut out just for heat cable, and very little of it is looped under the actual shoebox. From what I can tell so far, the 50 watt is a little weak, and might not even work once I drill ventilation holes. In a 74ish degree room, the hotspot is only 88 or so running wide open. But again, this is with one loop of maybe 5-6" of heat cable underneath the tub and not even in direct contact with it.

I'm not sure how you would utilize it without a groove for it to go into. Again, I've never tried it the way you are describing, but it sure seems like it would just get rolled into a tangled mess is you were opening and closing a drawer sitting on it. And no matter how you ran it, I feel sure you would 100% need a thermostat on each cage. The diagram shows people using it inside the enclosure just wrapped around branches, but that sounds like crazy talk.
 
Im running 2 Zoo Med repti-heat cables. The small cable is 15 watt and the big one I have on multiple enclosures is 100 watt. There both on one thermostat, they will get to 95-100 deg. unregulated. I would recommend this repti-heat cable. There is a cold lead on the cable so it dosen't get hot near the plug, so the heat cable is shorter then it says.
 
Matt, are you saying the cable itself only gets to 95-100? My 50 watt gets to about 132 directly on the cable surface, it's just a hard surface to temp gun being so small. Surely a 100 watt would get warmer unless the cables' length is doubled. Not saying change anything in your setup if it's working, but unregulated, these things get awfully warm. That's why I found it nuts they show them just draped around a chameleon's branch on the box.
 
I have sterilites stacked over the 100 watt. Unregulated, the floor of the plastic box was 95 deg. No, I did not measure the temp directly on the cable. I also didn't measure with the cable taped onto the bottom of the boxes, there just sitting on top of it. The fifteen watt is good for a ten gallon, not multiple enclosures like the 100 watt 39fter.
 
So a 15 watt would be sufficient for my needs from the sounds of it (I have a rheostat and thermometer setup at the moment as the thermostats were a bit pricey). Thanks for the feedback!
 
One more quick question I forgot to ask as I am getting these soon -- going to go for the longer one I think as I'll be setting it up with a few enclosures, does it plug directly into the thermostat? Or is there something else I need to do? Thanks!
 
And my other question related to that is what thermostat would you recommend in a lower price range? I'm looking at either the Zoo Med ReptiTemp 500R Remote Sensor Thermostat or the Hydrofarm MTPRTC Digital Thermostat For Heat Mats as the two options that aren't extremely expensive. Any thoughts on either of those?

Thank you
 
What is your price range for a thermostat? For about 79 bucks, you can get a prewired Ranco, which was the gold standard for years before the fancier ones came out. Not many bells & whistles, but Rancos work. Your thermostat will either have a power strip wired in or inlets in the unit itself.
 
Chip -- do you know where I could find something like that? and would it hook up to the heat cables with no problem? I'm definitely not mechanically inclined unless I see someone do it first.
 
Here are some options. http://www.reptilebasics.com/thermostats You will just put the thermostat probe in a cage, directly on the heat cable. I always leave that one empty, but plenty of people have a snake living with their thermostat probe. I find if you put it right on the heat tape (or cable in this case), you can set the thermostat high. For example, my baby rack is set on 95 directly on the heat (back heated), this makes an 88 degree hot spot on the floor, grading to about 74 just one foot away at the front floor. Ventilation is key, but this is in a room kept 70 degrees year round, with slight fluctuations. If your room temps do vary much, like my racks at the store, you will have to keep a closer eye on things, though!
 
I keep the house pretty stable, and I'm around most of the time, so keeping an eye on it isn't a problem at all! So you just plug your heat cable into the power strip and adjust? I like that... Thank you! That's definitely an awesome product.
 
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