Hi,

I just got a zoomed 100 watt 12m heat cable from ebay and have a few questions for those who use the stuff.

How flexible is it - how fierce can I be in the turns as it were? I bought a little tub and tried to test it on my living room floor (will be ordering flexwatt to test next week for a comparison) but they said loops no smaller than 2" so I could only get 5 lines of the cable under the warm end of the tub - and that was stretching it to half the tub length. As you can see from the temps shown it managed to hold the warm end at between 91 -94.3 overnight but the thermostat was basically running full on at that. When I tested it without the thermostat it only reached 92.8!!!! Which officially makes no sense to me.:eek:



If I was a little cavalier and closed it up so I could get more lines of the cable under the tub would that increase the temps?

Or is there a method for installing it under the tubs (routering into the shelf and covering with a metal plate for example) that maximises heat transfer?

I bought the zoo med version because the only other one I can find is by "rena" and is also 100 watts but is 15 meters instead of 12 so I thought it would provide less heat per foot. Imagine my joy at seeing Adam and Joe mention how cr*p zoo med stuff is.

I want to have "exess capacity" on the heat front because the current snake tanks in the room may be helping maintain the temp but would obviously be no longer there once the rack is up and running.

And before someone points it out I know I will have to heat the cold end as the thermometer shows. Once I have tested the flexwatt I intend to have the loser as the cold end heatsource on a seperate thermostat. Also there is no water bowl in there so don't worry about the humidity either.

Is there a high powered alternative I'm missing? some form of ceramic plates? or a hot water heating system like a cpu watercooler in reverse? On the latter front does anyone think it would be worthwhile to get a plumber drunk and interrogate him?

As I'm building the rack myself I can be almost infinitely flexible in the design stage - and will almost certainly be infinitely incompetant in the building stages.

I may also have to find a better thermostat if I can - the one I'm using has a limited and probably inaccurate setting system but is the only type I can seem to find and they are damned expensive to boot;

It's one of these,

http://www.eurorep.net/retail/produc...oducts_id=1400



I notice all the cool digital ones availble in america so if anyone knows of anything similar for sale in the U.K. please let me know.

It's amazing how none of the really good reptile gear has made it across the pond yet. Though there are rumours the germans have some good kit I can't read german so can neither confirm nor deny it.



dr del