Help with Vivarium Electronics VE-200

[Ink'd Out Geckos]

Hello all, I hope you can give me some insight as to where I messed this up lol. I built a DIY rack. Have a VE 200 thermostat running 4 3 foot lengths of 3 inch flexwatt. I soldered the connections and the tape gets warm but not more then 80 degrees. I've run it in proportional mode and on/off mode. No luck. Perhaps I did something wrong. Any help is appreciated. THANKS!

 

[Noah L]

Well it shouldn't be a wattage issue since what you described should only be using around 120watts and your thermostat is rated for 700.
If you could answer these questions I may be able to help more.

Where are you measuring your temps from? e.g. inside the tank or directly on the flexwatt?

What temperature do you have the thermostat set to?

What is the distance between the flexwatt and cage bottom.

What surface is the flexwatt laid out on? e.g. wood/metal/plastic

 

[Ink'd Out Geckos]

Shelving is an HDX Home Depot rack so it's slotted plastic. What I did was lay down aluminum tape first over the slots and then laid the tape on top. The probe is inside an empty bin directly over the heat source and reads 81. The thermostats is currently set at it's highest 125 in on/off mode. I tried to drive the temp up but it's still not working. My temp gun is giving me temps of 94 if I test the tape directly. The tubs are sterilite so there is a slight gap between the tape and tub.

 

[Noah L]

If the tape is only getting to 94 I'd say the problem is the tape itself or the wiring, have you tested any other strips of tape?

 

[Noah L]

I forgot to add that you could try plugging the tape directly into an outlet and see if it gets any hotter.

 

[Ink'd Out Geckos]

I'll try that. It's taken a few days but I'm finally getting better readings on the tape and in the tubs. I guess I should have let it slowly come up to temp. Plus I had to set the thermostat really high in order to achieve that temp.