DIY Plywood Cage Question

[TopazEye]

I am in the planning stages of building a cage for my Ball Python. I'm thinking 4x2 and I'm still trying to decide how tall it should be. I'm planning on sealing the inside with drylock. My problem at the moment is how I should heat it. A radient heat panel seems to be a good option. I'm just not sure if I should have some sort of UTH/flexwatt in the cage and how to go about that. I saw a build where they put linolium over the flexwatt? It was posted on a diffrent forum and looked very nice. If anyone has any tips for DIY cages I would love to hear them!
Thanks,
Max

[gunkle]

You should be fine with just a radiant heat panel just make sure it's the correct size for your application. Someone will chime in with the name of the person to contact to figure out proper sizing. I'm at work and am drawing a blank. I went a little bit bigger than required so I am never running near 100% in the hopes that it makes the panel last longer. As to height if your doing a heat panel you don't need much height. I made mine 18"and it works great. BP's aren't natural climbers. Check out my builds for tips.

[Craiga 01453]

You should be fine with just a radiant heat panel just make sure it's the correct size for your application. Someone will chime in with the name of the person to contact to figure out proper sizing. I'm at work and am drawing a blank. I went a little bit bigger than required so I am never running near 100% in the hopes that it makes the panel lasts longer. As to height of your doing a heat panel you don't need much height. I made mine 18"and it works great. BP's aren't natural climbers. Check it my builds for tips.

I believe you're referring to Bob at Pro Products

[gunkle]

I believe you're referring to Bob at Pro Products

That's it. Thank you

[Craiga 01453]

That's it. Thank you

Thought so....

And OP, I think investing in a RHP is the best way to go. The enclosure will do a great job of insulating the heat and the RHP will be the most economical to run while providing consistent accurate temps for you.

You won't need to run any belly heat and maintaining a proper gradient.

Definitely talk to Bob at Pro Products. Make sure you have as many details about the enclosure as possible, as well as avg temps in the room the enclosure is in, etc.. This way he can guide you to the right size RHP for your setup.

[TopazEye]

You should be fine with just a radiant heat panel just make sure it's the correct size for your application. Someone will chime in with the name of the person to contact to figure out proper sizing. I'm at work and am drawing a blank. I went a little bit bigger than required so I am never running near 100% in the hopes that it makes the panel last longer. As to height if your doing a heat panel you don't need much height. I made mine 18"and it works great. BP's aren't natural climbers. Check out my builds for tips.

Your cages look great! I really like the black on the inside of the BP cages, it looks very nice. I'm thinking 80 watts for the heat panel.

[Joesmith]

Instead of dry lock look into pond shield. I personally havent tried it but people make plywood fish tanks using it.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

[gunkle]

Pond shield is what I used in my enclosures. 2 went great, the green one was a pain. Not sure if it was an old batch or my room temps were too cool but it cured very fast and doesn't look as nice but all setup it's hard to notice the issues.

[wnateg]

Pond shield is literally the hardest thing to work with. I ruined my first batch because I was so upset with it. But it works great. So I mean, it's a give and take.

[mechliam]

I would recommend Pond Shield also. Can be a bit awkward to work with but when done right it looks great.

I use either mats or bulbs in all my custom builds. For a BP, I would go 18" high with a mat or 24" high with a bulb (and use a guard). I don't use the Radiant Heat Panels in my enclosures so I can't really help you with that one but going from previous comments, sounds like they work well. Might look into it myself in the future.

I wrote up how I go about building my custom enclosures. You can check them out here:

https://www.reptilerange.com/how-to-...ile-enclosure/

Let me know if you have any more questions and I will try to help.

Liam.