For anyone who knows about zoo-med reptiheat cables.

[dlefik2008]

first off, i must apologize if this is in the wrong section. i really wasn't sure where to go with this so i thought i couldn't go wrong with general.

i'm basically just trying to find anyone who has experience with these zoo-med reptiheat cables. i was talking to sean over at yourgeckoguy and he was telling me he uses these to heat his rack and really recommended them. i didn't go into details with him about what they were like and how to choose the right one.

basically, my idea is my wife and i have an older 3 shelf book stand that we plan on converting into a little "minirack" for hatchlings. We already have paint to restore it for in the house and found out the bins we plan on using will fit nicely. now i wanted to use this reptiheat cable to heat multiple bins across several shelves as from my understanding the cable is flexible so we could just make some holes on the sides to just kind of snake it through and use one cable to heat all the shelves.

i'm also aware of the fact we would need something to control the temps of the cable and monitor the bins for some time to make sure the temps stayed consistent. my main question is though, after looking at the many types of cables they have, how do i know which wattage i need? i can pretty well figure how long we'll need but i've noticed they come in assorted wattages starting as low as 25 all the way up to 100, at least the ones i saw. the shelf is not overly huge, it just stands at about my waist level but has three shelves. well, two that were actual shelves and then the bottom of the unit.

so basically, anyone who's used them, how would you know what temps each wattage will give you. soo sorry to drag this out in a long winded description of what i'm looking for, it's just the way i am sometimes. i would show a pic of the shelves, but i really didn't want to do that just yet until we had it painted lol. hope someone can shed some light on this for me.

 

[acpart]

I use the zoo-med heat cables a lot to heat my glass enclosures. Don't worry about the wattage, in my opinion, worry about the length. The 25' long cable doesn't provide 25' of heat; there's about a 6' "cool" length. The different wattages, I believe, are in order for the different cable lengths to heat adequately. The biggest problem with using heat cable in a rack is that it's bigger diameter than flexwatt. The 2 ways to solve this problem are either to put the heat cable along the back (less desireable because then there isn't really good bottom heat) or to use a router to make a channel for the cable so it ends up flush with the bottom of the shelf unit.

You will definitely need a thermostat to ensure that the heat is correct and not too hot. Usually people put the probe in the middle of the rack.

Aliza