temp help

[tangell88]

just recieved my new rbi sweaterbox rack on friday. hooked it up to my ve-300 thermostat after work and have had it running all weekend. the heat tape according to my thermostat probe will not get above 88*. i have set my thermostat up to 105 and it will still not get any warmer. it is in an 80* room. what could be wrong?

[Maixx]

I just wrote this on another post, trouble shoot your system,if you can get the probe, its not taped or glued down you can test the thermostat.

To test a thermostat put the probe in cold water, plug a lamp into the thermostat, and heat the water up, using a thermometer check the water temp when the lamp shuts off and compare it to the settings.

If the thermostat tests good turn the heat on, with a temp gun watch how the heat tape warms up.

[kitedemon]

A second test you might try is to plug the heat tape directly to the wall (with no snakes in the rack!) and see what the temp maxes at. If the T-stat is bad it will hit in the 120º range but if the tape is bad it will not heat up. Then you can start checking connections ect.

[tangell88]

i moved my rack into the basement where it is 84* hooked my rack up directly into the wall where as before it was plugged into an extension cord. didnt know if maybe i was losing too much power through the long cord? now the unregulated heat tape is up to 94* after two hours. does that seem low to u guys? also tested the thermostat with a light bulb and it seems to be working properly

[kitedemon]

No, not really low it depends on the wattage and length long cords will drop the power quite a lot and it is a heater, are you using a cord that is medium to heavy duty or just a light duty one?

I like to have my heaters tuned just like your is so if the t-stat fails there is still no way your animals can be overheated to a terminal amount. Check with the supplier to see if that is a temp that he/she would expect.

You might try placing the rack back to its location and try the same with your cord you were using and check again. If you see a temp drop it might be line loss to the long cord. That combined with 4º room temp difference might be enough to cause the cooler than expected temps.

[tangell88]

contacted rbi. they said that they just had another rack doing the same thing and think they might have had a weak batch of tape. they are sending me a new section today