Heat tape safety...?

[3skulls]

....again.

Ok. So I'm working on some new roach racks and a shelf system for my King Snakes.
Each shelf will have its own piece of heat tape.

So when a doing project that doesn't have one long strip of heat tape snaked through. There is always going to be the risk of failure right?

To be 99% safe you would need a probe on each section of heat tape, right..?

Even if it was snaked through as one piece there could be a failure on slot 2 if the probe was on slot 5. Looking at this right, or no?

I have been very busy so my mind might be playing tricks on me. :o

Thoughts?

[Mike41793]

I'm like 99% sure that if there is a failure, it'd be the whole piece. So no, you wouldn't need multiple probes, i'd probably just put it on the middle shelf. The benefit to this is that if there is a failure, you know exactly where it is and there's only one piece to replace.

[snakesRkewl]

Solder those individual connections and you'll have a smaller chance of failure.
I have racks with individual pieces of 11x12 flexwatt and have for years with no issues.
One thermostat probe is all you need.

[3skulls]

Have everything soldered.

Maybe I'm just over thinking everything.
Just seems like if you have your t-stat set to 90* and the probe on the middle slot. What stops the top shelf from failing and going up to 120*?

I have racks running like that and I have racks with one strip snaked.

Like I said maybe I'm just over thinking or not looking at it with a clear head.

Thanks for the thoughts.

[Darkbird]

So do you mean to ask whether the failure of a small section of a strip of heat tape would cause the rest of that strip to overheat? Just trying to clarify. I think the only failure mode fot the tape itself would be for it to stop working. It can,t draw more power than the t-stat gives it. So even if the failure is on say, shelf 5, and the probe is on shelf 3, assuming that all the temps were running even before, all you would get is a drop in temp on that section of shelf 5.

[3skulls]

I'm more thinking of a non probed shelf over heating.

I don't even know if failures work that way. Working on these new projects just got me thinking.

[dillan2020]

If you had a thermostat probe on every shelf to monitor temps i'm sure it would be safer. but i would think a failure in a connection would give you a cold shelf though not a hot one.