Lamp dimmer switch....

ANy of you buy the ready to use lamp dimmer switches from the hardware stores to run your UTH's?
I recomended that lillyorchid get one and the darn thing isnt working. I used one prior to getting a t-stat and it worked great but for some reason her's will not run her UTH.
Anyone have any ideas why its not working? The switches are rated for 300 watts and I know that the UTH's run off of much less then that. Or maybe im wrong on that!?
Any electronic guys or gals have any ideas??

Does anyone know? I'm stumped by this!

Did you plug it into a light to see if the light dimmed? If it doesn't dim, then it's not wired right.

Did you solder the connections? I assume you're using a commercial pet store UTH? In that case you'd split the wire somewhere in the middle, cut one, strip each end and solder each of the dimmer wires to one of the stripped ends. Sure she didn't accidently use the grounding wire of the dimmer on accident?

Also.. make sure the dimmer is actually on.. lol is the UTH heating?

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Originally Posted by adizziedoll

Did you plug it into a light to see if the light dimmed? If it doesn't dim, then it's not wired right.

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Yup it was working fine, then just stopped when I plugged in my UTH.

okay, how high did you turn the knob on the dimmer? I'de turn it up as high as it can go at first (obviously not under the tank) and give it about 5-10 and you should feel the heat. If it's dimming the light, it should work for the uth.

AndI've never heard of soldered the wired together. My father is an electrician, and he said that's what the wire nuts are for, no soldering required. JMO. Anyone else solder them for a dimmer?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by adizziedoll

okay, how high did you turn the knob on the dimmer? I'de turn it up as high as it can go at first (obviously not under the tank) and give it about 5-10 and you should feel the heat. If it's dimming the light, it should work for the uth.

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I did that. It was working fine for a few hours. I noticed that the light went out and my UTH was no longer warm. Pluged a light in, it worked. Pluged UTH back in - nothing. I found out that it fried? my UTH since my UTH was only two days old and it had died after I plugged the dimmer into it. So right now I'm running off a heat lamp, till I get my flexwatt and therm.

I hate dimmers - prob I did it wrong but the one I used in my sav's first enclosure seemed so eratic I changed to basic CHE and stat for the next viv.

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Originally Posted by lillyorchid

I did that. It was working fine for a few hours. I noticed that the light went out and my UTH was no longer warm. Pluged a light in, it worked. Pluged UTH back in - nothing. I found out that it fried? my UTH since my UTH was only two days old and it had died after I plugged the dimmer into it. So right now I'm running off a heat lamp, till I get my flexwatt and therm.

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Sounds to me like your UTH was defective. I used a dimmer on a UTH for my gopher snake for quite awhile and never had a problem with it. All that being said, if you've got flexwatt and t-stat on the way, then it's a non-issue anyhow. I consider dimmers to be a "better than nothing" solution if you can't afford a t-stat.

i use dimmers on my both my uth and when i used Ir lights, i also used them on them. they seemed to work great for me.