Help with Heating PVC cages

[Lizardlicks]

Okay, I have never used PVC caging before, and I've been eyeballing the AP T8s, but I need to balance space and efficiency. Is it possible to rig up the heat sources of multiple PVC caging so they can run together off of one or two t-stat probes? If it is, does anyone have examples of builds with pics? Or am I better off experimenting with custom DIY racks?

[distaff]

My understanding is that if the cages are identical, and stacked, you can treat the set-up just like a rack.

[Lizardlicks]

That is what I was under the understanding of as well, but I'm having difficulty wrapping my brain around how it would actually function without some kind of visual. The only thing google results returns for me when I go looking is radiant floor heating :/

[distaff]

There is an old HLH Reptiles video about heat tape, and if I recall correctly, he was using it on some stacked plastic enclosures he had.

That might help.
(I know what you mean about visuals.)

[CantHelpIt]

You will need to be cautious about temps as the top cages can be heated by your lower cages.
I have two 3' cages on top of a 6' pvc enclosure, the 3's use heat tape and the 6' uses a heat panel
The 3' cage above the radiant heat panel has its thermostat set at 94 to achieve a hotspot of 88-90 whereas the other side is set at 102 to achieve the same hot spot.
Keep a close eye on temps and allow it at minimum 2 days to stabilize before putting animals in if you will only be running one probe.

As an example for running off of one probe, I'll try to explain with my setup.


lets look at mine as 6 cages (dividers in the middle) you would put 3 pieces of 12" wide heat tape wired together under the centre of each of those dividers, half on one side half on the other. Then place the probe on the centre cages heat tape and plug it in. You will of course have to keep a close eye on temps but that would essentially give you 6 cages off of 1 probe

[Lizardlicks]

Okay yeah I'm understanding the concept but I think what I'm having trouble visualizing is how is it wired? Where does everything connect together without being interrupted or having something bent or pinched or...

Basically for a rack you usually have the heat tape snaking up in an S pattern (or else have connecting wiring doing the same thing) to create a hot spot in the back, but with the PVC cages they're oriented lengthwise so you'd put your hot spot at one end (for an adult snake using the entire cage) or down the middle (for enclosures with dividers to become essentially two smaller cages). But they open from the front so you can't really use the S style, it would get in the way of the doors???

I'm sure there is something incredibly simple here that I'm missing because my brain has decided to not process it for what ever reason.

[Skeletor]

I think you would just plug each individual strip of heat tape into a power strip. Then the power strip can go into the thermostat to control all the individual pieces of heat tape.

[CantHelpIt]

You can either plug them into a strip and plug that in to your thermostat or you wire them all in parallel and then plug that directly into your thermostat.
If you wire them in parallel they simply hang out the back end of your cage

[Lizardlicks]

*Face palms*

I knew there was something simple I was missing lmao. Though now my question is, is there an appreciable difference in wattage that would affect how the unit heats when running everything through a powerstrip?

I'm thinking with this setup running the whole thing off a herpstat 2, one probe for running heat tape hot spots and one for running RHPs for ambients.

[Skeletor]

I've been using RHP only. Creates a nice ambient temperature sweep across my cage. Just outside and on top of one of his hides will be around 90-92. If I read my BP's skin temp inside his warm hide, he's usually around 88, floor temp also. My cage is only 12 inches high. 36x24x12. There are 2 hides...one on cool side, one on warm side. THen if he wants to hang someplace else...he usually will just tunnel under the paper towel. Not often, but he will.