Herpstat HP Tripping

[Neal]

It could be an issue with the thermostat or with the heater. You said the heater has 3 settings, 600w, 900w & 1500w. Still even being on a 15A breaker(15A x 120v) = 1800w. So if your heater is kicking on or using more than what the herpstat is rated for it still wouldn't trip the breaker, especially if it's the only thing hooked up.

Also, just something to think about, is depending on when the dwelling you live in was built, when you hook everything up and run that heater you may very well trip a breaker. What you should do is check your breaker panel and make sure that you room is on a dedicated breaker, or see if maybe it has two breakers(highly unlikely). I know when my house was built new in 2011, they didn't even wire it to code as my master bedroom is on the same 15A breaker as the master bath, and those are supposed to be on two separate. I kept running into an issue when on my PC, with the heating elements going and turning on a light or two my breaker kept tripping. I ended up paying a guy $180 to run a dedicated 20A outlet so I can have this just for my snakes.

So my point is when you hook everything up in your snake room, you need to make sure it's not going to trip a breaker as well, just figure I'd mention it.

[BPGator]

Ok - talked to Dion and we figured out what was happening. I'll start with the 2 troubleshooting items he wanted me to try:

1) first one was connect a surge protector to the outlet. Attach the Herpstat to the surge protector and turn it on so its reading temp. Then attach the heater to an outlet on the surge protector, not the Herpstat. The heater should be on full power when attached. The idea here is to determine whether there's a surge in the circuit tripping the relay.

2) connect the Herpstat and heater as normal on a different circuit to see if the problem occurs.

When I tried these, #1 tripped the relay, but #2 functioned properly. So, the conclusion was the circuit I was trying to use originally is highly loaded and the heater is causing a voltage drop that trips the relay.

So... good news is the Herpstat works. Bad news is I don't have another outlet in the room I was trying to set everything up in. But, i believe I have a circuit nearby that doesn't carry a lot of load; I'm going to add a connection to that circuit and run a cable to add an outlet to the room. I've already tested this other circuit and the Herpstat does not trip when connected to it.

I appreciate everyone's help and input on this.


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[PitOnTheProwl]

Glad to hear you all found a solution.

[Justinhicks]

Do you have a multi-meter? I'm curious how much VD this little heater causes, and how much is already at your receptacle. There may be a few things you can do to help with VD. Make sure your receptacles are properly pig tailed ( verses feeding though i.e. Using all 4 terminal screws on the recep), the terminal screws are tight and upsizing the romex cable in that circuit.


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[BPGator]

Do you have a multi-meter? I'm curious how much VD this little heater causes, and how much is already at your receptacle. There may be a few things you can do to help with VD. Make sure your receptacles are properly pig tailed ( verses feeding though i.e. Using all 4 terminal screws on the recep), the terminal screws are tight and upsizing the romex cable in that circuit.


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I do have a multimeter, but I never checked what the voltage drop was, so I'm not really sure what the underlying issue is. I'm also not sure what all is in that circuit. I found a circuit that only had an outlet and a light in it, so I spliced to that and ran a new outlet. Works out better this way anyway because now I have an outlet closer to where I'm setting everything up.


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