Issues Regulating Temp

[SerpentineSylph]

I have just about a 30 degree difference in temperature between my cool and hot side. I have a rheostat connected to 11" flexwatt for a 32qrt Sterilite tub, and an Acurite thermometer sitting on the coolside while the probe is adhered under the substrate (which is papertowel). I'm new and want to do this right, but I'm having such a hard time finding the right course of action. If someone could help me and point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it!

[Reptile King]

What's the temperature on the hot side? Also, what's the temperature of the room where the snakes are kept? Although I don't use racks I have to have a space heater in my room to control ambient temperatures.

[SerpentineSylph]

They average around 72-76 degrees in the room, though our heat's been on the fritz today so it's colder. I've had the tub setup for less than 24 hours, and still figuring this rheostat out (dim light = hotter, bright light = cooler I did not know until minutes ago. ) so it's currently 96.6 on hot spot and 66.9 in the corner of the cool spot. I'm just wondering why I'm getting such a dramatic difference in temperatures from the hot to cool side, and how to regulate that more so than how to bring my temperatures into the right place. I feel once I figure my oh-so complex rheostat out, that getting the overall temperatures where they should be (once I get the correct 5-10 degree temperature difference down) wont be the problem.

[Kaorte]

The reason your cool side is so cold is because your house is so cold. Maybe think about adding a second UTH or getting a small space heater.

[OhhWatALoser]

They average around 72-76 degrees in the room, though our heat's been on the fritz today so it's colder. I've had the tub setup for less than 24 hours, and still figuring this rheostat out (dim light = hotter, bright light = cooler I did not know until minutes ago. ) so it's currently 96.6 on hot spot and 66.9 in the corner of the cool spot. I'm just wondering why I'm getting such a dramatic difference in temperatures from the hot to cool side, and how to regulate that more so than how to bring my temperatures into the right place. I feel once I figure my oh-so complex rheostat out, that getting the overall temperatures where they should be (once I get the correct 5-10 degree temperature difference down) wont be the problem.

2 things worry me, for starters how the heck are u dropping the cage temp on the cool side to 70 degrees when its 72-76, or are you saying its normally 72-76. if thats the case its pointless to be playing with your rheostat until your room is back up to tempature.

also your rheostat worries me, all a rheostat is, is a varible resistor, you control the resistance with the dial, "dim light" is high resistance, doesn't allow much current to pass, making the light dimmer, "birght light" is low resistance to no resistance which allows full current to flow, making the light brighter.

now your heat source should act the same, "dim light" would allow little current to pass, making the heat source put out less energy. "brightlight, should allow full current to flow allowing it to put out its max energy.

I'd start with get a new rheostat that works the way its spossed to, or are you sure your reading it right?

also if you have that much difference in tempature, I'm assuming your using a heat pad? you might need a bigger heatpad because it might only be heating the one little area and not the rest of the cage. whats your setup? screen top? doesn't hold much heat.

i could ask questions all day, send us a picture of what you got going on. I had no problem keeping correct temps when my room was only 70 degrees.

you can also do what I did and have your girlfriend move in with her 7 bearded dragon cages, that kicks up the tempature of the room up pretty good.

[Kaorte]

OhWatALoser: The rheostat she is using the the lutron lamp dimmer from the home depot. This particular dimmer has a little red light on it that gets brighter when the dimmer is at low resistance.

[Vypyrz]

From what I read, they are using an 11" piece of Flexwatt. I am assuming that is 11" long and about 3-4" wide which would mean that only the very end of the tub is getting any heat. I would think that either another strip of Flexwatt would need to be added a few inches in from the other one or an appropriate size UTH would need to be used...

[SerpentineSylph]

OhhWatALoser:
The girlfriend thing worked well for you, but I feel I'm enough for my boyfriend even if I didn't come with 7 beardies of extra heat.

Rheostat:
That's what I was saying was that I was reading the rheostat wrong. I was thinking dim light equaled low power, bright light equaled high power (when it was the opposite).

Flexwatt/Current Temps:
I have a foot of the 11" width Flexwatt under the one side. My current temps are now 96.2 warm side, 75.4 cold side, 55% humidity. The house temps are coming back up to normal, but I'm not sure if it will be enough to regulate the heat in the winter. I did buy two feet of the flexwatt so that I would have backup for anything (another snake, the first strip backfiring or needing another strip), so I'm going to solder the other strip and place that in the other side to try and regulate the temperature on the cold side. I was concerned before that the 11" might've been too much.

Setup:
I did mention it in my first post, but I basically made a single shelf rack based off of Kaorte's sideways rack plans actually. 32qt Sterilite tub, paper towel substrate.


Would switching to a different substrate help keep the temperature up as well?

[OhhWatALoser]

just weird, I had no problems heating a 41 quart with a foot of 11 inch flex, my room was about 72ish most of the time... you got alot of air flow pulling heat away? big gap in the top of your rack and the tub? or... im trying to think what the other variable would be causing the huge difference. something seems wrong. seems like your room temp is much lower than 70. got a link to the rack design?

i've always used newspaper, another substrate might make it colder where the snake sits.

[SerpentineSylph]

That's what I was curious about since I see so many setups with one strip of 3" and 4". The whole house thermostat is set to 69, but the room the cage is in is warmer. Our heat has been on the fritz lately, so that also might be causing that difference in temperature or at the very least adding to it. The enclosure I tried to mimic was this one with nearly identical materials (same wood, just different color). There is a gap of 1/8" from the top of the tub to the top of the rack, would that be doing it? The guy at Lowes cut the side pieces a bit higher than I had marked.

If I were to get a thermostat to regulate temperatures (I worry about the temperatures fluctuating with the rheostat since I have to manually adjust it), would there be an affordable (I see the Reptitemp 500r recommended a few times) one that I could plug two UTHs into? I was thinking of doing two flexwatt strips underneath, one regular and one with the rheostat to keep it lower for the cool side. Is this a feasible idea?