Rack wiring/rewiring question.

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Originally Posted by ThyTempest

I planned on using a power strip....is it pretty common/easy to just set each level to have its own power plug? I plan on buying a Herpstat Pro, not a helix, herpstat or herpstat II.

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Lol ahhh ok I just saw in the OP that you said you were getting the herpstat pro :D My bad!

It's really easy (IMO) to wire up flexwatt individually, but I am an electrical engineer and I have access at work to soldering stations and wire galore so that might be why it's easier for me. But there is a really good DIY article here on how to wire it up. I did mine exactly the way that he does his soldered flexwatt and it works perfectly on my corn rack. Just make sure that you put something over the exposed metal. I got zapped once by it and let me tell you that was NOT fun!

So, in general, you think wiring each level of any rack in general to have it's own power plug (to go into a powerstrip that is used as the input to the tstat), would be better than say wiring a 6 level rack to one power outlet to go either straight into the tstat or to a powerstrip (based on wattage capacity limits of the tstat)

If that is clear....

You don't want to wire each level individually it's a waste of time and resources and the benefits... NONE.

Wire the 4 or 5 levels that you want to assign to one probe in one big piece and then the top or whichever level you want at a different temp to another.

You can build the rack so one big pice can be zig-zagged all the way up and there won't be any need to make a new cut for every level.

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Originally Posted by JKExotics

You don't want to wire each level individually it's a waste of time and resources and the benefits... NONE.

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Well, the only real benefit is that each individual level can be put onto a different controller or can be set using the Herpstat Pro to a different temperature which is what the OP was asking for in the beginning. If all the flexwatt is running to one plug they would all be running at the same temperature.

To ThyTempest: if you know, say, that you're only going to need 3 levels for corns and 3 levels for balls then you could either zig zag or daisy chain those 3 levels together which would be easier than doing each strip individually.

why not just wire the ones for one species together and wire the other species together then later on you can make them the same by just plugging the 2 into the same thermostat if you see the need. youll just have 2 plus on that rack
just make sure its all the same type and wattage.

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Originally Posted by anendeloflorien

Well, the only real benefit is that each individual level can be put onto a different controller or can be set using the Herpstat Pro to a different temperature which is what the OP was asking for in the beginning. If all the flexwatt is running to one plug they would all be running at the same temperature.

To ThyTempest: if you know, say, that you're only going to need 3 levels for corns and 3 levels for balls then you could either zig zag or daisy chain those 3 levels together which would be easier than doing each strip individually.

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This is what I was thinking originally. I don't understand the whole zig-zag, one piece idea though...I will be using belly heat so I dont see how this is possible. The daisy chain is what I was imagining. Basically, I am thinking....

hypothetical 4 x 6high rack. Lets say that I want the top four racks for bps, bottom two for corns or boas. This wouldnt work b/c there would be different total wattages for each section if I wired the 4 together to 1 plug, and the other 2 together to a separate plug. By this, I mean after I split the species up and want to use the whole rack for bp's or whatever, all on one temp. For this reason, if I didnt want to split them evenly when multiple species are in the same rack, I was thinking of just rewiring the flexwatt all back together into one plug for when the rack goes back to one species. This way, all one temp, can split the rack whatever way I want beforehand, and only takes one power outlet so the powerstrip could be eliminated if I wanted to.

I think my hypothetical situation got so convoluted that I may just have to start over from scratch.

I'll try to explain it alot of rack companies use this method to conserve the amount of probes and controllers you use.

I'll try to take pictures tomorrow when I clean racks. Basically you wire the flexwatt in a zigzag from the bottom or top up or down and leave a small space at the left or right of each level to wire it up or down to the next partition.