Heating Snake Racks

Hi everyone :)
I'm not new to snakes, but I am new around here and this is my first post. I've been lurking around a bit trying to read up on as much as I can and everyone seems so nice and helpful.

I found the DIY snake racks using the plastic shelving units, so I'm planning on building one very soon since my collection is growing a lot faster than I thought it would. My question is, when heating with heat tape, once you hook everything up, is that it? Or can you unhook and re-wire the heat tape as needed? The reason I'm asking is right now, I won't need every shelf, so I don't want to put the heat tape on every shelf. But I may need those extra shelves in a few months or so as I'm going to try breeding this year. Instead of having two thermostats for the shelves, can I just unhook what's going to be heated to include the additional shelves? Or will I need to get brand new heat tape and clips and everything to include the extra shelves?

Thanks in advance!

I would just spend the little bit extra and heat all of the shelves.
You can wire each one individually and plug in only the shelves you want to heat.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I don't know how any of this works yet. I know that each shelf has its own heat tape and wires that connect to it, but I thought that all those wires have to eventually be connected to hook up to the thermostat. Doesn't the thermostat only have one connection? I have one already, but I haven't looked too closely at it yet since I don't have the rest of the things I need.

Here are a few sites that should explain exactly what you need. They really helped me when I was building my rack.

http://www.beanfarm.com/heating/Flexwatt_Wiring.pdf

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/flexwire.shtml

and last but certainly not least...

http://www.slitherinsisters.com/how-...e-flexwatt.php

Hope that helps!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by swansonbb

Here are a few sites that should explain exactly what you need. They really helped me when I was building my rack.

http://www.beanfarm.com/heating/Flexwatt_Wiring.pdf

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/flexwire.shtml

and last but certainly not least...

http://www.slitherinsisters.com/how-...e-flexwatt.php

Hope that helps!

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Thanks for all those links! I've seen the Bean Farm one already but those other ones will definitely help out too.

I think that maybe my quesion isn't clear though. Is there a way to heat only certain shelves and later add additional shelves to the same thermostat without re-wiring everything? I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself but I'm having a hard time explaining what I mean.

Yes you can. What snakesRkewl was trying to tell you is to put heat tape on every shelf, wire each shelf with its own plug, then you have a powerstrip hooked up to the thermostat, and when you need the shelf thats not being used to be heated all you do is plug it in. So every shelf will have its own heat tape, and its own plug. Only the used ones will be plugged in. Same as if you were using heat mats, or heat cables, one per shelf with its own plug hooked to a power strip hooked to the thermostat, plug and unplug as needed. I hope I made sense and didn't come off as confusing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sally

Thanks for all those links! I've seen the Bean Farm one already but those other ones will definitely help out too.

I think that maybe my quesion isn't clear though. Is there a way to heat only certain shelves and later add additional shelves to the same thermostat without re-wiring everything? I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself but I'm having a hard time explaining what I mean.

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You can wire each shelf with a heat tape strip that has its own power cord. Then you plug the cords into a power strip and plug that into the thermostat. If you do not want to use a shelf, simply unplug that cord. If you want to add a shelf, wire it again with a seperate cord and plug it into the power strip. It is important that each shelf be wired the same way so the output it is the same.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

You can wire each shelf with a heat tape strip that has its own power cord. Then you plug the cords into a power strip and plug that into the thermostat. If you do not want to use a shelf, simply unplug that cord. If you want to add a shelf, wire it again with a seperate cord and plug it into the power strip. It is important that each shelf be wired the same way so the output it is the same.

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Awesome! That's exactly the information I was looking for. I didn't realize I could hook them all up to a power cord. Thanks, everyone!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

You can wire each shelf with a heat tape strip that has its own power cord. Then you plug the cords into a power strip and plug that into the thermostat. If you do not want to use a shelf, simply unplug that cord. If you want to add a shelf, wire it again with a seperate cord and plug it into the power strip. It is important that each shelf be wired the same way so the output it is the same.

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Awesome! That's exactly the information I was looking for. I didn't realize I could hook them all up to a power cord. Thanks, everyone!

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Sorry for the double post. Stupid phone service.

That is exactly what I do. I have each shelf wired to its own plug, and I plug them into the power strip connected to my thermostat. :)

:welcome: to bp.net!

The only thing not mentioned is often the room the rack is in needs to be heated as well. Not always the case but in my experience the most that can be expected is 5-7ºF higher than the room temps so if your room is cool it is likely you will need something like an oil filled heater and personally I would use a T-stat for that as well (Ranco or Johnson are perfect for this use)