Using Flexwatt for back heat

[Gene Collins]

I am just curious how to go about setting up back heat. The way I have the flexwatt set up now on my rack it seems to not always make the shelves consistently heated. I thought about trying back heat. It seems to me that it would require turning up the thermostat to a much higher tempt. I assume that I would then place the thermometer probe on the back of the tub. This will make the back wall of the tub warm but does this really give them an effective place to curl up with warmth. I assume belly heat is the best thing for them, but with my current setup I am afraid the only way for consistency would be separate flexwatt for each shelf each with their own thermostat which is not really financially in the cards for me.

[interloc]

Belly heat all the way. The only time I will say back heat is antiquate is in a heated ball python room.

To address your concern about having belly heat in your rack. You don't need a separate thermostat for each shelf. One of the benefits to flexwatt is it heats up pretty consistently. What I have in my 2 racks is 3 strips of flexwatt soldered together in parallel 3 times in my rack. So there are 9 shelves and 3 plugs. This way if I have a problem with some flexwatt say on the 4th shelf, I don't need to take all the flexwatt off. I jut take off three. You plug all the plugs into a power bar then into your thermostat. You place your thermostat probe onto the middle or just below the middle shelf of the rack. This should give you a fairly average temps true for your rack (assuming your flexwatt is wired right). Most people will tell you their temps change from bottom to top by a few degrees. This is because heat rises. We all know that. You can run a lot of flexwatt through one thermostat assuming you don't exceed maximum wattage or use 2 different sizes of flexwatt. A 4 inch strip heats up a lot faster on the same power than a 11inch. So as long as your whole rack uses one kind of flexwatt your good! Hope this helps ya.


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[BHReptiles]

Do you have an open or closed rack system? Is it homemade or pre-made when you purchased it? I have a homemade rack and it's very open. Luckily, my bedroom stays 80-82* so I don't need to worry about ambient temps. If your rack is a homemade open rack, you can always add sides and a back using melamine, plywood, etc. Just something to make walls. That will help hold in the heat that your flexwatt is putting out.

[OhhWatALoser]

my setup is 100% back heated, works out good for me, room is normally around 80, thermostats placed right on the flexwatt, they are set around 100ish.