What kind of thermostat do you use?

im using a ranco

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Originally Posted by Vypyrz

Based on that, I would suggest a Ranco. They are both essentially the same thing with the same price from different companies. I just think the Ranco looks nicer. Just my opinion. You can order them with the power strip installed here...


http://www.reptilebasics.com/

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Thanks, that was very informative! But based on what you said in your previous post, I wouldn't be able to use the Ranco brand with all 3 of my heating sources, unless they were all the same wattage? I have 2 UTH's (2 different brands I believe, one was already attached to the tank when I got it) & I have a 100 watt ceramic heat emitter. I wouldn't be able to use it with these, since it only comes with one probe?

I am using a Herpstat II -- I am controlling a strip of flexwatt, and on the other input a radiant heat panel. The herpstat is definitely nice since it is proportionl -- I honestly don't think I ever see either of my temps ever move.

Another thing you might want to take in consideration is what you are going to be conrolling with the thermostat. I know most people don't use heat lamps, but if you get a Johnson or Ranco (which are on/off thermostats) the heat lamp will constantly be turning on and off -- which could get rather annoying.

I'd go with a Johnson or Ranco at the minimum, and a Herpstat if you can afford it.

Just my $0.02

Later,

George

If you need to use an overhead heat source to help keep up the ambient temps, I would use the Ceramic Heat Emitter. The thermostat probe would be attached to the UTH. That way the thermostat is maintaining the belly temps at the desired temp and the CHE will just be supplying additional heat for the air at the same time and will be far less annoying than the light clicking on and off all the time.

You also said you had 2 UTH's. How are they positioned? are they right next to each other on the same end of the tank or are they at each end of the tank? And what size are they?

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Originally Posted by kasmir

Thanks, that was very informative! But based on what you said in your previous post, I wouldn't be able to use the Ranco brand with all 3 of my heating sources, unless they were all the same wattage? I have 2 UTH's (2 different brands I believe, one was already attached to the tank when I got it) & I have a 100 watt ceramic heat emitter. I wouldn't be able to use it with these, since it only comes with one probe?

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I'm not an electrician so I'm going to try and explain this as best as I can so if my info is wrong someone can correct me. The wattage rating on the UTH's is what is important. For example, if you have 2 enclosures running on one thermostat, one has a 20 watt UTH and the other has a 12 watt UTH. The 20 watt is going to heat up faster so if you have the probe attached to the 12 watt, by the time it reaches 91degrees the 20 watt will be well over that. And if you put the probe on the 20 watt, it will reach 91 before the other. Now that can work to your advantage in some cases, such as if you live in a cold house and you use a UTH on the cool side to keep it around 79-80F. In this case you would put the probe on the higher wattage UTH as your warm side and the lower wattage UTH would just be running as supplemental heating. If you are using this type of set-up and both UTH's are the same wattage, then you would need to get a rheostat or dimmer, plug the coolside UTH into it and then plug the dimmer into the thermostat. That way you can reduce the amount of electricity going to the cool side UTH which will cause it to run at a lower temp. In that case, you would also want to use 2 AccuRites so you can have a thermometer probe on the glass above the cool side UTH which will let you know which way to adjust the dimmer for the desired cool side temp. I hope that kind of makes sense...

Edit to add: After re-reading this I would say that it would be best to use a dimmer for the cool side UTH regardless of it's wattage...