Quick and urgent solutions for a bp lover on a budget!

[kitedemon]

I think you have a great notion there save some cash with a rheostat and buy a herpstat later. The digital thermometer with a probe they all have the same specs and basically the same accuracy buy the cheapest you can find same hold true for ir guns basically they have the same accuracy.

[roboticsundaes]

An update on the guy. I got him, and all that he had was a inappropriately sized Exo Terra cage, a dead overhead light, and a few sticks and fake plants. I went out and bought a heat pad, a lamp dimmer, a temp gun, aspen bedding, hides, and a waterdish. The poor guy was in the 6o degree range, and although he's stressed to no extent, we're holding him to keep him warm while the heat pad heats up. He's warmed up a bit, and is now in the 80's, and is crawling around our (clean) hands. I feel so bad for him/her! Any other suggestions would be nice. S/he has what I think are wood mites, they're a tan/white color. The last owners ended up putting PAM on it's FACE. Ugh.

[mark and marley]

cool you got the stuff.i live in AZ anyway.at least hes in caring hands now.pam?!?!?!?!?wtf?!?!?!?!

[roboticsundaes]

Yeah, it pissed me off, I tried to get it off best I could with a damp towel. He's not terribly head-shy, so it worked out.

An urgent question! My lamp dimmer is totally not working. The second I unplugged it though, the heat mat heated up. I covered the sticky side in aluminum foil, and the temp gun is giving me weird low readings on that side, so I'm just taking the temp readings on the other side. Any clue about the lamp dimmer though? I'm also ~testing~ it on a human heat pad, same results, even when the dimmer is on full blast.

[Keyboard Warrior]

Yeah, it pissed me off, I tried to get it off best I could with a damp towel. He's not terribly head-shy, so it worked out.

An urgent question! My lamp dimmer is totally not working. The second I unplugged it though, the heat mat heated up. I covered the sticky side in aluminum foil, and the temp gun is giving me weird low readings on that side, so I'm just taking the temp readings on the other side. Any clue about the lamp dimmer though? I'm also ~testing~ it on a human heat pad, same results, even when the dimmer is on full blast.

Could be a faulty dimmer. Try it out on on a lamp, and see if it dims it or not. It should be controlling the output of the UTH. Is it not heating up at all? Or it's just fluctuating alot? Fluctuating room temps will cause the UTH to fluctuate the heat that its giving out.

[dr del]

Hi,

Have you tested the lamp dimmer using an actual lamp?

It sounds stupid I know but some of them work in a completely bizzare way - in that the lower they are turned the brighter their light gets.

I always just end up writing + or - on mine with a permanent marker.


dr del

[roboticsundaes]

I did try it on a lamp, and it worked just fine. I think I got it to work. Last night woke up and checked the temps about every hour to hour and a half, and they've seemed to settled down. I'm going to remove the aspen bedding later because this is confusing the heck out of me. At a spot where I pushed the aspen away, it's 90-95 degrees, but above the aspen (only 1-2 inches) it's ten degrees lower. On the other side of the tank, it's even lower. What do you guys do in this situation, for future reference? I know I want to have bedding, just dont want the glass under to be 100 degrees a risk a burn if my bp digs. Again, for now I'm switching to paper towels to solve the problem. Also, my friend and I are planning a vet visit to find out the sex and make sure he doesn't have any serious issues.

[dr del]

Hi,

Yep - we usually change the amount or type of bedding.


dr del

[roboticsundaes]

I had 3-4 inches at first, but took out a whole bunch. Is there another type of bedding that lets heat through better than aspen? It's really bugging me.

[OtterGoRun]

Any non-conductive material will block some heat a bit. I use aspen (a thin layer) and place the probe just under the surface rather than buried all the way down to the glass. It gives more accurate readings, but do know what the temp is at the glass as well in case the snake decides to burrow down.

Something thin like paper towels or unprinted newspaper will be more even from top to bottom since the layer is so thin, but will still block a tiny bit of heat.