Heat Tape and Rack

[digizure]

Hello, I currently use a rack system and I bought the shelves from Home Depot. Now, I want to add the second set of shelves on top of the current one (they are both the same shelves).

Anyway, my question is this... I plan to use 4 inch heat tape and I'm trying to decide whether I should cut the tape into nine 3-foot strips, individually wired and plugged into a power strip then plugged into the herpstat OR just hook up one long strip of heat tape (32 feet) to the herpstat?

My concern is this, if I wire them individually, how do I maintain temperature for each level because there is only one probe? Let's say the probe is on shelf #5 and the heat tape for shelf #8 is bad and overheats? And if I just use one long strip of heat tape, I heard I'd get inconsistency with the temperature.

What are your thoughts/experience? Thanks!

[interloc]

Wire them in parallel. Like this crappy pic shows lol.

The white wire is connected to the heat tape. Then the wire curves up to the next shelf and connects to that strip. Then you run another curve to the above shelf and just do that for as many shelves as you have. You can see that one white wire goes into the shakf and one comes out and goes to the next shelf. It's easy. At the end, instead of having another wire, just attach the plug. All 6 shelves of my rack are on one plug into my VE 200 thermostat.

[Kaorte]

You are always going to see a little variation from shelf to shelf. As long as they are wired correctly and all the heat sources are identical, the thermostat should have no problem regulating them if they are in separate pieces.

I think when I redo my flexwatt I'm going to use a single piece though. I have to resolder my connections ever few years and it gets a little annoying to resolder 7 sets of heat tape.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[PiercingPrincess]

Whatever you do, make sure its wired properly and taped down good. I had the misfortune of something going wrong with my wiring last night and couldn't figure out how to fix it.

[digizure]

I kind of like the idea of separating each strips because if one goes bad, I can easily replace it. Does anyone have this set up where each strip is plugged to a power strip? If so, where do you place the probe?

Thanks.

[Kaorte]

I kind of like the idea of separating each strips because if one goes bad, I can easily replace it. Does anyone have this set up where each strip is plugged to a power strip? If so, where do you place the probe?

Thanks.

Yes. I put the probe on the middle shelf.

[Robyn@SYR]

In the Pro Exotics setups, I would seldom run a section longer than 25 ft. There is just too much temp variability from start to finish, makes it hard to keep consistent cage temps. A 32 ft. piece is going to be problematic.

I strongly suggest using a separate piece for each shelf.

[Kaorte]

In the Pro Exotics setups, I would seldom run a section longer than 25 ft. There is just too much temp variability from start to finish, makes it hard to keep consistent cage temps. A 32 ft. piece is going to be problematic.

I strongly suggest using a separate piece for each shelf.

What about for smaller racks that would only need a total of 15 feet of flexwatt? I am considering redoing all my flexwatt and putting in one long strip through all the shelves. I like having them individually wired, but I don't like soldering all those connections. Such a pain! Also if one of them dies for some reason, I won't really notice. If the whole rack is one strip, I would notice right away that it wasn't working.

[digizure]

That's the thing. If I put the probe in the middle shelf and if the flexwatt on the other shelf goes bad, I could easily injure or even kill my snake(s).

[RedseaReefer]

OHere's a few pics of my rack showing the tape "snaked" from shelf to shelf.
It's only a four shelf rack with 10' of flexwatt hooked up to a helix DBS-1000



Also I placed the probe on the middle shelf.
I really liked how easily installation and hookup was considering I only had one set of connectors and one set of wires to deal with.

I had a hell of time finding any photos showing how the tape is usually done when I was planning/ building my rack.

Hope this helps some! Best of luck to you!!

Edit: also with this particular setup I'm able to expand this rack easily without another stat necessarily. I can add two more racks of the same size with same length flexwatt with no problem