BP unplugged his RHP

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Originally Posted by WhompingWillow

It's a wise idea to try to secure your cables. We had a scary and potentially dangerous situation happen a couple of weeks back with one of our RHPs. We have two older style Reptile Basics panels where the plug can come out of the panel itself, two of the newer style Reptile Basics where the wire cannot come out of the panel, and 1 from ProProducts where the wire cannot come out of the panel. All are run on Herpstats. I was checking snakes and turning lights on one morning when I noticed our BCL had disconnected the wire from her heat panel, as happens every so often when she explores her enclosure. Except she had only *partially* loosened the plug from the panel and it was actively smoking at the connection point and had melted a little bit. I am SO glad I went downstairs when I did and was able to unplug everything. I hate to think about what could have happened if I hadn't. Needless to say this freaked me out really bad and I ordered replacement panels from ProProducts for the two older style RBI ones. We're keeping the newer style RBI panels for now but will eventually upgrade those to ProProducts as well.

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That is scary & I'm so glad you found this just in time to dodge a catastrophe, whew! And thanks for sharing your experience here too.

Thank you everyone for the input! I will most likely go with cable staples with screws and I will look into using cable straps as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WhompingWillow

It's a wise idea to try to secure your cables. We had a scary and potentially dangerous situation happen a couple of weeks back with one of our RHPs. We have two older style Reptile Basics panels where the plug can come out of the panel itself, two of the newer style Reptile Basics where the wire cannot come out of the panel, and 1 from ProProducts where the wire cannot come out of the panel. All are run on Herpstats. I was checking snakes and turning lights on one morning when I noticed our BCL had disconnected the wire from her heat panel, as happens every so often when she explores her enclosure. Except she had only *partially* loosened the plug from the panel and it was actively smoking at the connection point and had melted a little bit. I am SO glad I went downstairs when I did and was able to unplug everything. I hate to think about what could have happened if I hadn't. Needless to say this freaked me out really bad and I ordered replacement panels from ProProducts for the two older style RBI ones. We're keeping the newer style RBI panels for now but will eventually upgrade those to ProProducts as well.

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Wow this is terrifying, I'm glad that you caught this problem in time. One of my fears is the electronics associated with snake heating causing a fire - it has definitely happened to people in the hobby. My RHP is made by VE so I'm not sure if it has the same issue but I will be vigilant about this.

To avoid any more issues until I can install a cable staple I've temporarily removed my ball python's horizontal climbing bar (which is what he uses as a boost to reach the RHP wire). He still has a branch to climb but I've put that on the opposite side of the enclosure.

Despite being a terrestrial species I think my BP really enjoys climbing so maybe I'll look into getting him one of those sky hides and installing more things for him to climb once the RHP wire is secured.