Thermostat question

[jphealy]

I'm thinking of getting a thermostat for my setup to maintain more constant temps.

My setup at the moment is as follows: Wood enclosure with glass sliding doors. UTH on 24 hours; There are also 2 bulbs in the viv - one regular 60W white incandescent which is on a timer to come on for 11 hours during the day, the other a 50W infra-red bulb which is also on a timer to come on the other 13 hours at night. The UTH and both bulbs are all at one end of the viv.

How exactly would I work a thermostat into this setup? Would I just plug one thing into the thermostat - the UTH for example - or could I plug the three things (2 bulbs and the UTH) into an extension lead and plug that into the thermostat, thereby dimming more than one thing at a time?

Also, is the probe placed at the hot end, in order to get the right temp for this end, and just have the viv set up so that the cool end is always about 8-10 degrees cooler?

Sorry if my questions seem stupid, but I have no experience with thermostats for this kind of situation.

[jphealy]

I've been reading up a little more about thermostats and have a question - I know a dimming thermostat should be used if you're connecting it to a bulb, but can you connect a heat mat to a dimming stat? Also, can you plug a number of different heating sources (eg: a bulb and a heat mat) into the one dimming thermostat? Is this advisable?

[ErikH]

Here's what I did:


I bought a zooMed thermostat (I think it is called a reptistat). It is capable of controlling two different heating units up to 500 watts. I have my uth and a ceramic heater (both on the warm side of the tank) being controlled by it. The probe is inside the warm hide. I put a thermometer probe in there also for two days until I got the temp regulated to between 92 and 94 degrees. With this set up the ambient air temp on the warm side of the enclosue is around 87 degrees.

[justcage]

You really need a thermostat dedicated to one heat source. Like a stat for your UTH and one for a CHE.. They heat in different ways and are made to put off heat in a different manner.. You can use one thermostat with 2 different heating element is your trying to get them both to work together, like 2 CHE's trying to traise the ambient air temps... Since you need the belly heat to be around 92 or so and you will need your ambients to be inthe 80's. Thats hard to do when you have one stat trying to do 2 jobs... Hope I didnt make it to awful confusing..lol..