Rack Heating/Thermostat/Electrical question

[scutechute]

So last year I built a melamine rack. I wish I could give you a few pictures. When i built it, I made the sides a little taller than necessary to allow for future expansion, which i did a few weekends ago when i added the top two shelves.

My original 7 shelves all have one really long (the longest i could find at the store) heat rope for belly heat. The rope plugs into one of the slots in my thermostat. My thermostat has two slots avialable to plug things into it, one is used for the rope, so i have one slot open still.

My plan is to use an entirely different thermostat, and two of those really thin uth pads for the two new shelves(the ones that kinda look like flexwatt, cobra mats or something like that) [For the heat rope, i used a router on each shelf to create a ditch for the rope to lay in so the tubs don't damage the rope when they slide over it. This is the reason I'm using the extremely thin uth mats].

Blah blah blah, my question is this - even though im not planning on using a combination of heat mat + heat rope controlled by one thermostat, is this even possible? Does anybody use both plugs on their thermostat? what are the 'rules' for plugging two heating elements into one thermostat? For example, if i used two heat ropes on one thermostat, would they have to be the exact same length?? Same question for heating pads.

Also, sort of related - I was watching one of Ralph Davis's videos on youtube. On his freedom breeder rack, he has all the heating elements plugged into one long power strip, and then he plugs the power strip into the thermostat. I can understand why he does it, because he has like 12 levels, 12 heating elements, and i'm sure no thermostat is going to have 12 plug holes. Couldn't a person with a smaller rack do something similar with a smaller power strip? Even with only 2 heating elements on a rack, wouldn't it be better to do the Ralph thing, and plug both into a strip, and then the strip into the thermostat? If so, why would a thermostat even have multiple holes...and why would you want to if there's still only one probe?


Sorry for the long question.
Thank you in advance for any help.

[starmom]

As far as I know, only the Herpstat II and the Herpstat Pro can control different heat sources (your cable and UTH for example). The other Herpstats and Helix and others can control only one type of heat source.

I have a Helix controlling three RHP's; one in each cage. The Helix can do this because they are all one type of heat and they do not exceed the wattage recommended by Helix. However, were I to also use flex watt in those cages, I would then need to get out my Herpstat II to control the heat from the flex watt source and the heat from the RHP source.

Make sense?

[Argentra]

Every heat source has it's own wattage. Thermostats have a maximum wattage they can handle, usually around 500w. It sounds like you're using the ZooMed ReptiTemp, which has two plugs and can handle 500watts.
As Starmom said, it's not a good idea to plug different heat sources into the same t-stat, tho it CAN be done as long as they are the same item (i.e. different sized Heat pads, but not a heat pad and a lamp) BUT the different items will heat differently because of wattage.

If you wanted to use UTHs (and by the way, the Ultratherm Heat Pad from ReptileBasics is as thin as flexwatt and works great for a very good price, try looking into that rather than those cobra mat things), and that heat rope, you could do with one stat... as long as you made sure that the combined wattage didn't exceed 500.
For example, most of my tanks and tubs use ZooMed UTHs for heat. A 10-20gal sized UTH is 8 watts. 10 of those pads would still only be 80 watts... much lower than 500 and so safe to plug into one stat. That long power strip of Ralph's probably only has strips of flexwatt plugged into it, with low wattage. So he can plug that huge power strip into one thermostat and it can safely run everything. It's in fact a great way to plug in more cords than the t-stat has outlets for.

I hope that ramble helped...

[Mochelem]

A thermostat is rated on how many watts of output it can handle. Some are 500 watt, some are 1000 wat and some are 1500 watt. It doesnt matter how many things you have plugged into it as long as the load is less than the peak power handling of the unit. Plugging in a power strip will be fine, you just have to figure out what the power rating is on your thermostat and the power consumption on the heating elements.

I dont suggest using two different types of heating elements, getting them both where they are putting out the same amount of heat will be impossible.

I will suggest Flex Watt heat tape though it is very inexpensive..
http://www.reptilebasics.com/Heating-p-1-c-248.html

There are many guides on the net for wiring flexwatt, its easy... Then just tape it down will aluminum foil tape

[scutechute]

Thank you both for the quick replies, advice, and recomendations! It's making sense to me now!