Use a Rheostat & a Thermostat!

Hello guys,
Just wanted to share that I have recently hooked up all my heat sources to a Rheostat as well.



What this does is it safeguards your animals against catastrophic failure in the on position, for example, the heating element you are using may be very powerful, such as a UTH. The UTH could likely still provide your snake with enough heat at somewhere around 40% of it's power while hooked up to a Rheostat, that way if the thermostat fails in the "on" position, then UTH will only use 40% of it's power, and it likely won't kill your snake.


Thank You!

What Tstats are you using?

Have you seen them have to work harder because of the added dimmer?

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Originally Posted by KMG

What Tstats are you using?

Have you seen them have to work harder because of the added dimmer?

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InkBird WiFi. My thermostat is an on/off thermostat. I honestly believe that it is making my thermostat work less hard because it doesn't have to turn on and off as often.

I see. I have Herpstats and most are running in a proportional mode for RHP and UTH. In my situation I do not believe a dimmer would be a good thing to add and think it important you say more about what you are actually doing before someone blindly follows it.

I have had my Herstats for years. I haven't looked into the Inkbird or even seen a tstat with wifi. Everything has wifi now. A humidifier I got for my snake room does. Crazy times.

I do use two dimmers but they are on a bulb using a timer and more for looks than heat.

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Originally Posted by KMG

I see. I have Herpstats and most are running in a proportional mode for RHP and UTH. In my situation I do not believe a dimmer would be a good thing to add and think it important you say more about what you are actually doing before someone blindly follows it.

I have had my Herstats for years. I haven't looked into the Inkbird or even seen a tstat with wifi. Everything has wifi now. A humidifier I got for my snake room does. Crazy times.

I do use two dimmers but they are on a bulb using a timer and more for looks than heat.

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Yea you wouldn't need a dimmer for a herpstat because a herpstat fails in the off position vs a cheaper thermostat like a inkbird which would fail in the on position. This seems like OP is using extra equipment to prevent a problem that better equipment would prevent.

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Originally Posted by Hugsplox

Yea you wouldn't need a dimmer for a herpstat because a herpstat fails in the off position vs a cheaper thermostat like a inkbird which would fail in the on position. This seems like OP is using extra equipment to prevent a problem that better equipment would prevent.

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That is what I suspected but wanted to be sure, and make it more clear for others.

I certainly think the better equipment is worth the price. I have I think four and have never had an issue with them. Some I bought used and are over 10 years old.

The only time I bought one of the el cheapo when I was in a pinch for time it failed....ON! I will neve do that again.

I think it's helpful to have ideas for how to make cheaper thermostats without safety features safer since some people aren't in a position where they can immediately buy an expensive Herpstat or VE. I've also heard of people hooking up two thermostats to each other so that if one fails ON the other one will still cut off power.

However I agree that a better thermostat that has alarms and safety against failing ON is the best investment in the long term. I would recommend to anyone to buy a good Herpstat or VE with safety relays as soon as possible. They last decades and will never let you down.

It only takes one thermostat failure to lose or seriously injure your snake and it's just not worth it to put your pet or yourself through that kind of suffering. Plus the vet and medication bills from one burn could probably pay for several good thermostats!

Funny how everyone jumps to conclusions and makes me out to be a dirtbag trying to save a couple bucks who has no regard for the safety of my animals.

I personally switched over from herpstats to inkbird-wifi stats.
I can monitor and adjust my temps from anywhere, an alarm on my phone goes off if my internet or power go out for greater than 30 minutes, I also get an alarm if the temperatures go too high or too low.

While it doesn't happen often, Herpstats have the ability to fail in the on position as well, one of mine did and I'm certainly not the only one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hugsplox

Yea you wouldn't need a dimmer for a herpstat because a herpstat fails in the off position vs a cheaper thermostat like a inkbird which would fail in the on position. This seems like OP is using extra equipment to prevent a problem that better equipment would prevent.

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What exactly is your experience with the inkbird wifi stat? how many have you owned?


No thermostat should be ran without a redundancy in place.

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Originally Posted by Luvyna

I think it's helpful to have ideas for how to make cheaper thermostats without safety features safer since some people aren't in a position where they can immediately buy an expensive Herpstat or VE. I've also heard of people hooking up two thermostats to each other so that if one fails ON the other one will still cut off power.

However I agree that a better thermostat that has alarms and safety against failing ON is the best investment in the long term. I would recommend to anyone to buy a good Herpstat or VE with safety relays as soon as possible. They last decades and will never let you down.

It only takes one thermostat failure to lose or seriously injure your snake and it's just not worth it to put your pet or yourself through that kind of suffering. Plus the vet and medication bills from one burn could probably pay for several good thermostats!

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The inkbird wifi has more safety features than standard herpstats. I have owned multiples of both.
What good is the herpstats alarm if it doesn't even send the alarm to my phone? What if I am not home when the herpstats alarm goes off?

It's extremely misleading how you claim that herpstats and VE's will "never let you down" they let multiple people down every year, especially the VE's.

How many inkbird wifi thermostats have you owned?

Hooking the heating element up to a rheostat & thermostat will cause the heating element to only reach a fraction of its un-regulated output if the thermostat fails in the on position.

I do however agree with your point about using two thermostats.

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Originally Posted by JobForARetic

Funny how everyone jumps to conclusions and makes me out to be a dirtbag trying to save a couple bucks who has no regard for the safety of my animals.

I personally switched over from herpstats to inkbird-wifi stats.
I can monitor and adjust my temps from anywhere, an alarm on my phone goes off if my internet or power go out for greater than 30 minutes, I also get an alarm if the temperatures go too high or too low.

While it doesn't happen often, Herpstats have the ability to fail in the on position as well, one of mine did and I'm certainly not the only one.

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Is that what you got from our responses? It certainly was not my intentions. I just thought your first comment was needing detail.


I get the wifi thing and love my home's wifi tstat. Between that and my wifi cameras I love being able to monitor my home. I always hated leaving for a few days and realizing once in on the road I didn't turn the tstat up. No worries now days.

I also installed a whole home generator years back so I don't have to worry about power outages. It was a life saver, literally, during the freeze we had. It ran for 18 hours straight the first two days and then off and on for hours at a time for the rest of the week. While others were stressing I was almost worry free when it came to my collection. That was great considering I had to work during it on 12s and couldn't be home myself. The wife certainly made use of it though..... Which also made me feel better.


For me the on/off is a no go. My main controlled devices are RHPs for my GTP and ETB. I tried on/off mode but didn't like how it was working.

I could really turn most of my others off since I heat the room. Actually half of my UTHs and RHPs are off. I didn't even turn them on during the freeze. I needed them back before they were in one room and now they're set up just in case.

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Originally Posted by KMG

Is that what you got from our responses? It certainly was not my intentions. I just thought your first comment was needing detail.


I get the wifi thing and love my home's wifi tstat. Between that and my wifi cameras I love being able to monitor my home. I always hated leaving for a few days and realizing once in on the road I didn't turn the tstat up. No worries now days.

I also installed a whole home generator years back so I don't have to worry about power outages. It was a life saver, literally, during the freeze we had. It ran for 18 hours straight the first two days and then off and on for hours at a time for the rest of the week. While others were stressing I was almost worry free when it came to my collection. That was great considering I had to work during it on 12s and couldn't be home myself. The wife certainly made use of it though..... Which also made me feel better.


For me the on/off is a no go. My main controlled devices are RHPs for my GTP and ETB. I tried on/off mode but didn't like how it was working.

I could really turn most of my others off since I heat the room. Actually half of my UTHs and RHPs are off. I didn't even turn them on during the freeze. I needed them back before they were in one room and now they're set up just in case.

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I have a strong preference for on/off. When I ran herpstats I used them in the on/off setting.

I need to get a backup generator asap. At the moment I have some propane space heaters that would be able to heat up my room if my central heating failed.

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Originally Posted by JobForARetic

I have a strong preference for on/off. When I ran herpstats I used them in the on/off setting.

I need to get a backup generator asap. At the moment I have some propane space heaters that would be able to heat up my room if my central heating failed.

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I LOVE my genny! Not cheap but a great upgrade to any home.

I was going to go with a crank up that I plugged in but my job keeps me away during times it will most likely be needed. I didn't want the wife dealing with fuel and trying to keep it running.

I went with a 22kw Generac and have been completely satisfied with it. Kicks on automatically and kicks off when power is restored. We've slept through outages and only knew because the oven clock was wrong. The first time that happened I went out to the genny to check is log and.... Yep, she ran for two and a half hours. We didn't notice it at all.

I would recommend one to anybody but certainly a keeper. During that freeze I'm sure many pets were lost and people were struggling to keep them alive. I didn't have much to worry about unless the NG stopped flowing. Being in south Texas that was not a problem though.

Just know that the cost of the install is the same or more than the cost of the generator. So find what you want and double it. That will get you close.

To save buy it on a tax free weekend for emergency equipment. I did that at Lowes and got an additional discount by opening a Lowes account.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JobForARetic

Funny how everyone jumps to conclusions and makes me out to be a dirtbag trying to save a couple bucks who has no regard for the safety of my animals.

I personally switched over from herpstats to inkbird-wifi stats.
I can monitor and adjust my temps from anywhere, an alarm on my phone goes off if my internet or power go out for greater than 30 minutes, I also get an alarm if the temperatures go too high or too low.

While it doesn't happen often, Herpstats have the ability to fail in the on position as well, one of mine did and I'm certainly not the only one.

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No need to get defensive, no one said you were doing anything wrong, just responding to you and offering opinions/looking for some clarification. We have a lot of newer keepers here that may take a process that makes perfect sense to you, twist it up trying to use it, and end up with an issue. You start daisy chaining equipment together not knowing what you're doing is a recipe for disaster.

As far as Inkbird thermostats, I've never used them myself. I've heard good things, but I've always used Jumpstart, and most of my backup thermostats in my supply closet are Jumpstarts. Now I've moved most of my crew over to Herpstats because if something goes wrong, they're going to turn off. This works fine for me because I work from home, and them being cool for a few minutes while I grab a backup thermostat isn't going to hurt anything.

Apologies if you thought I was saying you were doing something incorrectly, wasn't my intention.