Help, Herpstat ND malfunctioned

[Ladybugzcrunch]

Here is what happened:

Around 10pm, I entered the room to find the back light of the ND off. Confused, I checked the plug which was still in place, so I unplugged and waited two minutes as I had suspected that the devise may for some reason flipped its internal fuse and I was attempting to reset it. The device promptly restarted but due to the strange event, I decided to monitor it to make sure it was working properly before going to bed. Thank goodness I decided to do this because the device is not functioning properly at all as I learned. The device is plugged into a rack system containing 18ft of 10w per foot 3" flexwatt. Each bin within the shelf has two digital thermometers, one on the cool side and one on the hot spot. After plugging the device in, I watched as the temperature rose quickly to my 97F setting at 100%. However, instead of stopping there, the power dropped to 0% BUT the temperature kept increasing! I confirmed that the actual temperature was increasing with my multiple thermometers. I stopped the device at 100F. I unplugged the device, checked all connections, and reset the high temperature to a lower setting. I removed my animals from the rack to find that three of them had burns on their bellies. I suspected that the device did not turn off until it had over heated at which point it shut down. I tested this theory to some degree. With my animals safely out of the rack, I turned the ND on again and watched it soar to 125F. It would have kept going but I did not want to damage it any further nor harm my rack so I stopped it at that point.

I sent my story to Spyder Robotics at 6:30 or so and have not heard back yet. I have no heat on my snakes at this point! The ambient is around 80 and I just ran their hot spots up manually using a temp gun and thermometers to 90 just to give them a little warmth but what to do now?????? Help!!! What would you do?

[dr del]

Hi,

I'd be tempted to look for a cheap temporary solution until you hear back.

I seem to recall them saying it can take 5 minutes to fully reset the device and I don't know if you need to double check the temp settings are all still in place afterwards.

Could you grab a lamp dimmer anywhere local or even a cheap thermostat in a local petstore ( I know that one isn't all that likely )?


dr del

[Ladybugzcrunch]

Hi,

I'd be tempted to look for a cheap temporary solution until you hear back.

I seem to recall them saying it can take 5 minutes to fully reset the device and I don't know if you need to double check the temp settings are all still in place afterwards.

Could you grab a lamp dimmer anywhere local or even a cheap thermostat in a local petstore ( I know that one isn't all that likely )?


dr del

Thanks for the reply, I just got an email back from Dion and will be sending him the Herpstat back in a little while. He said it was a rare voltage spike? I still have to read the article he sent me. I did hard wire in a dimmer for now and slowly bringing the temp back up since we all know how great dimmers work in this situation. I also hooked up 3 extra thermometers for a total of 19 on the 8 shelf rack I hate feeling so anxious about all this but I really like to be consistent and this just sux All the bad stuff always happens to me I checked out one of the burned snakes this morning and she does not look too bad, just pink belly and very agitated. I am going to watch them but it looks like it will not warrant a vet visit, we will see how they look later. I am going to also hard wire in a trip devise so that the power is cut from the outlet in the case that the temps get too high. I am do bummed.