Switching from hovabators to large coolers. What are you guys using for feet of heat tape and 4" or 12"? Trying to get a rough idea of about how many watts per cooler I need as I don’t have any heat tape left and will have to buy some.
It’s really difficult to say. It can be personal preference or size making the answers different. Probe placement and backup thermometers can make a hell of a difference though so do be mindful of that.
Mine isn’t a cooler build, it’s a custom, but it uses a strip of 6". Down the back and on the bottom.
I did use an actual igloo cooler for a couple of years though and for that one I used 4" but around the middle of the whole cooler.
I tested with a 15 WATT heat cable and to my surprise in a 68F room it is holding at 86F. I don’t actually incubate that high but that’s just the set point I tested with. I am going to use something a little bit higher in the other coolers so it comes up to temp faster, this one is just being used for cricket eggs (I find the crickets really need heat for the eggs to hatch fast and initial growth, after that I keep them cooler to slow down the process and make them last longer).