Heat tape wiring (technical)

[im faster]

okay..
instead of running heat tape constant for the rack..

wouldnt it be possible to just have it on the shlef part of the rack and run wire from shelf to shelf?
it would cut the cost of heating a rack in half almost depending on sizes

 

[im faster]

pic coming soon

 

[im faster]

 

[im faster]

well i found this.. not exactly how i was thinking but still it will do
http://www.paulsagereptiles.com/PDFs/HeatTapeInstructions.pdf

 

[im faster]

quadruple post FTW

 

[James Lamantia]

The way the heat tape was ran on the link you provided is the way that I ran mine. As ling as you run them in parallel you should be fine. If you have any more questions message me and I will try and help you out.

 

[im faster]

i still would rather do it like the first pic.. if possible

 

[James Lamantia]

I am checking this through my cell phone and it is a pain to type on. If you want to call me I will talk it over with you. You can do it the way you are talking about but there are a few things you have to watch out for. If you want to call my # is 954-821-4215 if not I will try to type it up tonight when I get home.

 

[Shandley]

It looks as if you want to run these in series. You have to make sure that the total resistance of the heat tape doesn't pull too much amperage through the wires. You could have a serious electrical issue if your heat tape is too much. Parallel (as James says) is your best bet.

If you still want to run them in series, take the voltage you plug the heat tape into (likely 120V in the US but CHECK IT) and divide it by the total resistance of the heat tape and that will give you your amperage. Post your amperage here so we can tell you what size wire to use.

Assuming you are not using more than 10 meters of this tape, this should be ok. You must make sure that each length is exactly the same otherwise one will have a higher voltage than the rest.

Do not skimp on any safety here. Know your soldering skills. Know your connections. Use a multimeter to check everything.

Even still, I would be seriously considering finding a way to connect these in parallel. You don't need heavy wire to do it and it is way more reliable, especially since you are cutting the tape yourself.

That's just one electricians opinion. You will get others.

 

[Shandley]

EDIT: It looks like I didn't take into consideration that the main lines that you connect your wires to run all the way down each side and connect to each strip of the tape rather than through each strip and out the other side. Series, so to speak, should work just as parallel would work because each side has the same potential difference.

Don't forget a thermostat!

 

[roger]

okay..
instead of running heat tape constant for the rack..

wouldnt it be possible to just have it on the shlef part of the rack and run wire from shelf to shelf?
it would cut the cost of heating a rack in half almost depending on sizes

its a whole lot easier using one continuous lenght of tape

 

[im faster]

Sure its easier...but its more wasteful and expensive also.. I ended up doing it the way in the link. it worked well.

 

[Tommy13b]

That type of wireing is called dasiy chaining. I did some research awhile back about how to wire heat tape, the two main methods are called Daisy chaining and home run. the downfall of daisy chaining is that if one row goes out, all of the rows below it do aswell. Home running(each row requireing an outlet ensures that every row has heat no matter what happens, in my opinion home running is a way to go because if you have trouble with daisy chaining then its a pain to fix.

Hope this helps.