Foil tape causing low heat...

[BrightReptiles]

So, could be the foil tape we installed or the 10* temp drop we had last night...

Until now I had been using duct tape to hold down my heat cable on my rack, but got tired of it peeling up so I taped it down with foil tape... I woke up this AM to 74* temps on my hot side... I was reading 92* last night after the swap, and had been getting 95-99 with the duct tape...

My cable itself feels like it is no longer getting as hot as it did before... Any suggestions? (This is strait wall power with no thermostat as temps were good before without the thermostat so we took it off the clean up some clutter.

 

[BrightReptiles]

Bump!

 

[BrightReptiles]

Just got home and it is back up to 91.5 which I feel is acceptable. Any way to crank it higher than what it is getting strait from the wall? Maybe soldering in a resistor or such?

 

[acpart]

I use foil tape all the time with no problem. As a matter of fact, I often tape aluminum foil over the UTH (or cable) to raise the heat in the enclosure. I don't know if you had to unplug the cable while you made the switchover. I've recently done a major cage renovation and ended up plugging in new UTH's and heat cable for the first time in some of them (I don't mean I was caging without heat, rather these were new cages and cable). It took sometimes up to a week for them to get up to the correct temp. You could always check your cable with a wattmeter to make sure it's putting out the number of watts it's supposed to put out.

ALiza

 

[BrightReptiles]

Its at 95 now, so it was apparently just taking its sweet time heating up. I figured 12 hours would have been plenty.