Tragic day for my snakes.

[L.West]

I recently set up some sterlite tubs to put my 2 snakes in when we have a power outage and I want to move them to another location. I bought Hydrofarm thermostats for those instances - would that be okay?? These would just be for an emergency - short duration kinda thing.

[bcr229]

The VE's can and do fail. A friend of mine lost a rack of retics when his VE-300 failed wide open.

A thermostat is like any other electronic device; it can break. Running two in line is one way to help ensure that you don't end up with overheated critters. A cheaper option is to put a dimmer switch between the thermostat and the heating appliance. Set the dimmer so the appliance gets uncomfortably warm but not deathly hot if the thermostat fails. The critter's behavior will let you know there's a problem.

Note that dimmers do have power limits so while you can put one on a whole rack running heat tape, if you have a four-high stack of 8' enclosures with 120W RHP's, each RHP will need its own dimmer.

[tcutting]

those are decent thermostats. you should be fine with that. but keep an eye on it. have an additional monitoring source on it and keep tabs. I had my digital thermometers batteries die semi recently and never replaced them. Not that it would have prevented what happened, but perhaps i could have seen a warning sign earlier.

Always have more than one way to monitor things. I learned the hard way that just because one system says its off, doesnt mean it is. without backup monitors running I didnt notice the problem. but given the nature of how I have my snake room, even if I did, i would not have noticed the monitors anyway.

[Warren_Booth]

I use Vivarium electronics V200 or 300s on all of my racks/cages. I love these and have yet to have a problem. I do however back them up with a Ranco ETC-111000-000. This is set before the VE stat (therefore closer to the power outlet, and is set around 5 degrees high than the VEs. So if I am running a VE at 90oF< it is set to 95oF. Therefore, if the first fails, the second catches it, and visa-versa. Its better to shut down than fry.

Most people are happy to spend hundreds, or even thousands on snakes, but scrimp on the things that actually keep[ them alive. I'm sorry you had this happen. Be lucky that the heat tape did not cause the tubs to melt and ignite. That has been reported more times that I can recall, and the results are catastrophic (entire houses burning down).

Warren

[tcutting]

so upon further analysis if found the exact root cause. and as it turns out this is something that can happen to ANY thermostat, good or bad. The good ones will certainly last longer and function better, especially over time, but my problem was that the relay, the electronic on/off switch within the unit fused in the on position. NONE of the systems that exist have a fail safe for that, at least not that I am aware of.

Based on those findings I worry that all of the thermostats are a ticking time bomb. basically they seem to be a self life on the electronic relays themselves. after learning this I would think that most of us in the hobby should consider replacing thermostat units once every 4-5 years maybe longer for the better units, as a best practice. even the system I was planning on building would not have a way to account for this. I will have to go back to the drawing board to see what else I could do to prevent a relay fusing on issue from doing what happened.

[zina10]

I use Vivarium electronics V200 or 300s on all of my racks/cages. I love these and have yet to have a problem. I do however back them up with a Ranco ETC-111000-000. This is set before the VE stat (therefore closer to the power outlet, and is set around 5 degrees high than the VEs. So if I am running a VE at 90oF< it is set to 95oF. Therefore, if the first fails, the second catches it, and visa-versa. Its better to shut down than fry.

Most people are happy to spend hundreds, or even thousands on snakes, but scrimp on the things that actually keep[ them alive. I'm sorry you had this happen. Be lucky that the heat tape did not cause the tubs to melt and ignite. That has been reported more times that I can recall, and the results are catastrophic (entire houses burning down).

Warren

How do you wire/plug these combinations up?

I know you can purchase two Rancos that are wired up with one another and then you plug the heat source into the first one. The second one is set at a higher temp.
But they are wired up together, not plugged into one another (the 2 thermostats)

So..if I just buy a second thermostat, what do I plug into where to use it as a back up?

Lets say, my heat tape has one power plug. I plug that into the thermostat and the thermostat into the outlet. (like everyone does).

So what do I plug into the backup thermostat? If my heat source only has one plug ?? How does the second thermostat control the heat source ?

Or do you plug in the first thermostat into the second and the second into the outlet ???

[IsmQui718]

I'm so sorry for your loss. It's always very upsetting when these things happen (I've had this happen about 10 years ago. However, it was with tropical fish).

Although it may seem like a lot of money initially, I'd recommend getting a quality thermostat. I love herpstat. I do have a jumpstart that's kept around in an emergency if needed.

As an FYI, I keep a separate thermometer probe an inch or two from the thermostat probe for comparison. I also take random readings with a temp gun. The tubs higher up on a rack will be a bit warmer since heat travels upward.




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[tcutting]

so at this point I have figured out most all of the logic and design parts that I need to have figured out. All parts are on their way many are here now. Once I get everything I will begin a full build log of all of the things I do and share the code and things I learn from it. At this point it seems fairly straight forward just need to start on laying out how things will fit inside a project box of sorts.

[Neal]

The only thermostats I would use are Herpstat which is my first choice, then Vivarium Electronics. Helix's are good too but I've never used them.

Herpstats have a fail safe, that if something goes wrong it kills the power. These cheaper thermostats Zilla, jumpstart etc.. don't have that. So when it fails, it gets blasted wide open. This is why I never recommend those thermostats because once you factor in the cost of the snake it's not really worth it to cut cost on a thermostat. Sorry this happened to you.

[tcutting]

The only thermostats I would use are Herpstat which is my first choice, then Vivarium Electronics. Helix's are good too but I've never used them.

Herpstats have a fail safe, that if something goes wrong it kills the power. These cheaper thermostats Zilla, jumpstart etc.. don't have that. So when it fails, it gets blasted wide open. This is why I never recommend those thermostats because once you factor in the cost of the snake it's not really worth it to cut cost on a thermostat. Sorry this happened to you.

from what I have seen I am not sure if they do detect the type of failure I had. Plus their alarm is a local one, meaning either visual or near by audio based one. I travel enough for long enough periods of time, that having a text/email alert when a relay failure is detected is needed.

The other thing I am doing is building a 12 zone system, one for every single snake so I can manage each animal individually. Granted I see where thats a bit overkill, but I would rather do this once the way I want it, than halfway do it and wish i did more later.

So when all said and done the value perspective of the herpstats is great, the key features I am after, multi zone and text/email alerts and remote control, there simply is nothing that does it. to get the zone coverage I am looking at close to $1,000, without the other features.


Separate of that, phase 1 of recovery is complete. I have a digital thermometer on every tub, replaced ALL heat tape since some warped from over heat, and replaced the thermostat with a single zone to 'get by' until I complete my replacement system. I have all the parts for the replacement system, I just need to start building it out and writing code.