What about the racks that are being run by one thermostat? Granted that’s only 3 of them, but Im still having issues with those as well. And the heat tape looks good. I pulled all the tubs out and checked each level and everything looks like it’s intact. Probes are still in place as well.
Then you either have an issue with your heat tape itself or the thermostat or probe. Isn’t much else it could be. Have you tried swapping the thermostats with different racks and see if the problem is same?
4" heat tape is usually 6 watt per foot. So you’d need 150’ per Herpstat 2 to reach the load limit. It is likely a combination of issues you are running into.
Among everything else I have going, I run a Vivarium Electronics VE6 with 2 VE2s stacked on top of it, running it on a VE200 thermostat. The bottom level was quite a bit cooler than the next level, all the way up, where the higher levels were notably warmer. Which is what heat does, it rises. I put a piece of 1 1/2" foam underneath the rack and it helped the bottom level maintain the temp better.
As far as the thermostat probes locations, do you have them attached to the heating bars on the heat tape? That can make a difference. I personally would run the rack at a higher temp, say 100 degrees, with the tubs all pulled. Then measure each level, across multiple points. That way you can see the variability and where you may want to attach the probes.
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I have not, that’s a great idea actually.
I have the probes attached to the middle levels and in the middle of the heat tape.
And I would attach the probe at the hottest point I’m assuming
I’ll also head to lowes real quick and get some foam to see if that helps as well.
I have a rack from Next Level (16 tub FB10) and found some variance among levels. I set it so the hottest level’s hot spot will not exceed 90. Some levels will be under ideal but no big deal, many people don’t even run hot spots.
I’m sure thermostat overloading is not the issue. I also don’t think it’s due to a single piece of heat tape (I’ve run dozens of PVC racks built this way without issue).
Like Randy said, insulating the rack might help. Raising the rack 6 to 12 inches off the ground with a pedestal can help as well. I used to run all my PVC racks on pedestals because of variance with the bottom level(s).
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I agree with this but op is having differences over 10 degrees. To me that’s a problem. I have slight variances in tubs in my racks but maybe of 2 or 3 degrees. And I think most racks have variances but 10 degrees is an indication of a problem for me personally. I like keeping conditions consistent for all my ball pythons.
This may be a part of your problem. most use foil tape to hold down the probe and placed on the black part of the heat tape.
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I totally missed that. Excellent point.
Herpstat doesn’t reccomend using foil tape, for some reason. I guess it might be interference with the signal. Another thing that could be giving bad readings is electrical interference from the power and probe lines running along each other, not that it’s really relevant here.
I’d agree with others above, I highly doubt it’s a overload issue with the wattage involved. I’m also not too sure about the voltage drop being a problem with the length of the copper strips involved, the resistance should be pretty minimal. I would take out the tape, lay it out, turn it on, and take measurements along the length of the tape to see if there’s any hot spots. If you are finding that it’s cooker towards the end, perhaps you could wind it the opposite way, so the beginning of the tape (the hotter end) is on the bottom and it sort of balances out.
IDK just my two cents
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I had such and issue with that. Seriously. So I split the large rack into 2 sections. the one rack is on 2 different thermastats and with that I achieved what I needed. The other racks are small. So from now on I will keep many smaller racks. When I get my actual reptile room it will be easier to maintain temps for sure.
I avoided using foil tape because there’s a risk of it shorting the tape. I used tape but not over the heat tape. So it was right next to the heat tape but still holding the probe on top of the heat tape (if I’m not being clear I can take a picture or draw a model).
How hot is the heat supposed to safely get when you temp the tape?
No matter the source, for balls the sweet spot on the surface, of the hot side should be 86, give or take a couple degrees.
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On the tag for the tape it says don’t exceed 110 degrees I guess they’re talking about the temp you’re running the stat at for the tape?¿
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This would be for your thermostat setting. You don’t want to go go above it or it can fail, melt, catch fire, or just about type of damage. But for a ball, it should never be that hight anyway.
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Gotcha thanks, mine is for geckos but still just wanted to be safe and see if I needed to be checking the heat tape itself.
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