What Thermostat Do You Recommend?

I'm building a rack for my snakes and I'm going to use flexwatt heat tape. I want a thermostat that can control ALL of the hot spots at once. It must have a fail safe.


Thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bellabob

I'm building a rack for my snakes and I'm going to use flexwatt heat tape. I want a thermostat that can control ALL of the hot spots at once. It must have a fail safe.


Thanks.

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What exactly do you mean all the hotspots? Do you mean to control the warm spot in each slot of the rack?

The rack you are building, is it going to be 1 long strip of flexwatt going through each slot in the rack? If so you just need a thermostat with 1 probe, make sure you secure the probe well to the flexwatt, if it comes detached from the flexwatt the thermostat will crank up the heat since the probe is taking the temperature of the air above.

I would recommend either a Reptile Basics Vivarium http://www.reptilebasics.com/thermostats
Or the Herpstat http://www.spyderrobotics.com/products/herpstat.html

What kind of fail safe do you mean?

I use herpstat amd love it. You can use it with up to four different heaters, and should there be any technical failure with the probe or anything it will always fail off, so at least the possibility of a fire is reduced. Theyre very exact and I never had a problem with mine.

Helix
Herpstat
Johnson Controls
Hydro Farms
All are good for what they do.
I think I have them listed from most expensive to least expensive.

Good Luck!
Jim Smith

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Agent73

What exactly do you mean all the hotspots? Do you mean to control the warm spot in each slot of the rack?

The rack you are building, is it going to be 1 long strip of flexwatt going through each slot in the rack? If so you just need a thermostat with 1 probe, make sure you secure the probe well to the flexwatt, if it comes detached from the flexwatt the thermostat will crank up the heat since the probe is taking the temperature of the air above.

I would recommend either a Reptile Basics Vivarium http://www.reptilebasics.com/thermostats
Or the Herpstat http://www.spyderrobotics.com/products/herpstat.html

What kind of fail safe do you mean?

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Each shelf is going to have one 11 inch flexwatt. I'm using 41Q tubs and my colubrids are going to be in a 21inch by 3 foot deep by 16 and a half inches wide. I will build a seperate one for the 2 BP's that will be 1ft high by 3 feet long by 16 and a half inches wide. So each peice of tape is going to be seperate.

By fail safe I mean that it a shortage happened or somehting happened with the electricity the thermostat will turn off right away.

I recommend a herpstat or a VE 200 or 300 as a primary and run a johnson or VE100 as a fail safe. Proportional units can fail on or off typically so can an on of off. The failsafe is a proportional T-stat plugged into a on off the probes placed together and the on off temp set to a high end temp (like 95-6) and the Proportional set to 90 or so if it were to fail the on off will shut it down at 95-6 degrees.

No unit can protect its self against catastrophic failure.

Helix is all I use. I might try a herpstat some day, but I love helix and I've never had an issue with them.

Typically when thermostats fail they run at full power. An easy solution, which is what I do with any of my thermostats, is put a lamp dimmer between the flexwatt and the thermostat. That way if it fails your flexwatt won't get hotter than whatever you have your dimmer set to. I usually set it at 100 because it won't kill the BPs, and it won't interfere with my thermostat if the room temp fluctuates a bit. When dimmers fail they cut the power, I know both of those by personal experience. In the beginning I almost lost the start of my collection to a cheap thermostat, but had a back up dimmer because a friend advised me to do so a couple weeks prior to the incident.

I am in love with my Spyder Robotics Herpstat :)

I have 3 herpstat's, 1 herpstat pro, and 1 helix.. I'd never use another helix after owning a herpstat. Herpstats have way more functionality in my opinion and are not as big and bulky.

love the spyder robotics herpstat