Going over the maximum wattage output in a Herpstat Intro?

[SquamishSerpents]

We just got all of our new racks and I'm wondering something. We have a bunch of Herpstat/Herpstat Intros. The wattage for all 4 of our CB70 tubs has been calculated at a maximum of 480 watts. However the Herpstat Intro only allows for 350 watts.

Would it be okay to plug all 480 watts into the Herpstat, because when I monitor my other racks, it seems the heat tape is only running at about 25-30% of it's power. Does that mean it's only using 25-30% of the wattage, and I should be able to get away with plugging everything in? Even if the heat tape was running at say, 75% (unlikely) it would be 360 watts, so just over and above what the Herpstat Intro can handle.

It seems like we're going to need a million thermostats if we cannot exceed the wattage. Please advise, I'd like to get everything up and running as soon as we can.

[SquamishSerpents]

And actually I just checked and our one Herpstat Intro says it's running at only 4-7% power. That was just over a course of about a minute or so though, I'm going to monitor and see how it fluctuates.

[iCandiBallPythons]

I wouldnt risk exceeding the the wattage capability of the intro. You could be looking at a serious fire hazard not to mention the safety of your animals. Personally I dislike the intros period.

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[SquamishSerpents]

What don't you like about the Intros? We were toying with the idea of getting a Herpstat 4 (or 2x Herpstat 4s) but each output also only has 400 watts to work with so it might just make more sense for us to use individual Herpstat Intros.

[iCandiBallPythons]

I purchased the intro to replace a helix on my big incubator because it can be recessed. I had to change the probe. The probe hangs in the middle of the incubator and I could not achieve the correct temps ( the intro probe works fine on my racks). I mainly just dont like the the way it programs compared to my herpstat 2's

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[iCandiBallPythons]

How are you calculating your wattage? What size heat tape are you using? My ND's are rated at 600 watts, each of my adult racks use 3inch tape and each rack is 4 levels high. The 3 inch heat tape is roughly 8 watts per foot

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[kitedemon]

480w is a lot of flexwatt. I have a 5 tier rack that runs under 60w are you sure you have calculated it correctly? 480w is not an accident if you check the specs on flexwatt it is the max amount of wattage that they recommend for the 3 inch 4 inch is 480w, the 11 is a touch more at 500 as is the 17 but that is 50 feet of 17 and 25 feet of 11.

[SquamishSerpents]

The 480 wattage is all of the CB70 racks combined (not sure if I stated that in my initial post) and it is 4" flexwatt. But it's not all 1 strip. There are 4 separate CB70 racks with 4 slots each (16 bins in total) Each rack has 2 separate rows of 4" flexwatt, so there are 8 separate pieces of flexwatt total.

Does that make sense? Lol. I'm soooo tired

[The Serpent Merchant]

I would get a plug in watt meter, and measure how much power you are drawing. Most have a min/max tracking function and are really useful to have around the house. My guess is that you aren't pulling anywhere near that much power, and if you do pull that much for a short period of time it shouldn't do much more than blow the herpstats fuse.

Here is an excerpt from the spyder robotics website:

Many of the 500 watt thermostats out there use 4-8 amp triacs. The Herpstat products use 15 amp triacs. This means they "in theory" can handle up to 1800 watts. However, things like board trace size and heat generation limits these devices so the Herpstats are fused at lower ratings which protect the device. The cost difference between the high quality triacs I use and the triacs in other thermostats is about $0.50. Personally I thought it was money well spent.

[SquamishSerpents]

I would get a plug in watt meter, and measure how much power you are drawing. Most have a min/max tracking function and are really useful to have around the house. My guess is that you aren't pulling anywhere near that much power, and if you do pull that much for a short period of time it shouldn't do much more than blow the herpstats fuse.

Here is an excerpt from the spyder robotics website:

That's what I was thinking too, and thankfully the new Herpstats have a resettable fuse.

As for that watt meter, that sounds like a good idea. Sounds expensive though! Do you figure somewhere like Home Depot or Rona would have them?