BAH-1000 Failed on me!

I came home from dinner today and found that the temps in my ball's tub had dropped to 75 degrees. I checked the thermostat and found it was dead, no lights, no power.

Even though I had a dimmer hooked up to it so that if it ever did fail it wouldn't spike the temps real high, I guess it didn't fail in the ON position.

I've had this Thermostat for right at about a month and I am very disappointed with its performance. It seemed to have strong swings in temperatures over the past month and would often "click" multiple times on/off in the course of a few minutes.

I now am warming my ball back up using just the dimmer (basically a rheostat) and I'll have to worry about him for the next week until I get the thermostat.

Ugh.

I would go with a herp stat I have several of them and never had any problems

The reptitemp 500r is a cheaper and more reliable thermostat. I personally think the BAH-1000 is garbage.

I've used Helix's for years now. No problems or complaints from me. I just bought another one.

I'd like to pipe in, that I've used Ranco's for several years now, and they have never failed me. You should look into them, Reptile Basics sells them. :)

I use the repitemp 500R with no problems! Holds the right temp all the time! It is cheap too!

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Originally Posted by seeya205

I use the repitemp 500R with no problems! Holds the right temp all the time! It is cheap too!

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I have to ask - why is the reptitemp so much cheaper than the helix & ranco? Is there something it doesn't do that the others do? Just wondering why I spent $110 on a helix, if the reptitemp does the same thing. :cool:

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Originally Posted by Kaoslb

I came home from dinner today and found that the temps in my ball's tub had dropped to 75 degrees. I checked the thermostat and found it was dead, no lights, no power.

Even though I had a dimmer hooked up to it so that if it ever did fail it wouldn't spike the temps real high, I guess it didn't fail in the ON position.

I've had this Thermostat for right at about a month and I am very disappointed with its performance. It seemed to have strong swings in temperatures over the past month and would often "click" multiple times on/off in the course of a few minutes.

I now am warming my ball back up using just the dimmer (basically a rheostat) and I'll have to worry about him for the next week until I get the thermostat.

Ugh.

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It needs a specific line voltage to work so adding a dimmer to it screwed it up.

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Originally Posted by Lolo76

I have to ask - why is the reptitemp so much cheaper than the helix & ranco? Is there something it doesn't do that the others do? Just wondering why I spent $110 on a helix, if the reptitemp does the same thing. :cool:

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The reptitemp has an analog setting -- basically just a dial and you have to take a bit of time to tune it in to where you want the temperatures to be. The more expensive thermostats are digital, you can set them to what you want without the guess work.

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Originally Posted by Darkice

It needs a specific line voltage to work so adding a dimmer to it screwed it up.

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I agree, the dimmer wasnt such a good idea. It's probably what killed it. If you want a back up, use something that turns on and off, like a ranco, not something that "dims" the power.

So per say if you had a helix and a ranco, you would use the ranco as back up, not the helix to back up the ranco.

Hi,

I think your misunderstanding the dimmer concept.

It does not go between the thermostat and the wall - it goes between the thermostat and the heater.

The thermostat gets full line voltage at all times and would not be screwed up in any way by the above setup.

The idea is that if the thermostat jams full on the damage is limited by the throttling of the dimmer - meaning that while the tank will get over temp it should only be by a few degrees not 10 or 20.


dr del

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Originally Posted by dr del

Hi,

I think your misunderstanding the dimmer concept.

It does not go between the thermostat and the wall - it goes between the thermostat and the heater.

The thermostat gets full line voltage at all times and would not be screwed up in any way by the above setup.

The idea is that if the thermostat jams full on the damage is limited by the throttling of the dimmer - meaning that while the tank will get over temp it should only be by a few degrees not 10 or 20.


dr del

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This is correct, the dimmer switch doesn't affect the input into the thermostat, it only throttles the voltage output to the heat source, so the heater will not go beyond a certain threshold even if the thermostat is stuck on.

Yeah, I guess I should have been more clear about where I had the dimmer hooked up. I had it hooked up how Crawdad/Dr. Del described. The snake appears to be fine so fortunately no damage done. Just a nervous snake owner.

Ah that sucks then =(

I use a ranco for some months now. No problem at all. And I actualy enjoyed wiring it. But I like that kinda stuff =)

I'm using a Johnson and it works great. I've heard a lot of bad things about the BAH-1000, but I use this one as well:
(top left)
http://www.beanfarm.com/store/agora...._Control&xm=on

I got my Johnson from Reptile Basics:
http://reptilebasics.com/Johnson-Con...d-p-16178.html