Helix Thermostat Question?

[vctkiller]

I've been seeing these thermostats for quite a while, and thought I could use it for my leopard geckos. I have 3 leopard geckos each of them stacked on visonariums besides the top which is a 20 long.

My questions are does just one helix thermostat have the capability of controlling all three of my tanks? If so there are different models and which one is best to choose? How would it work? Will all of the tanks be the same temperature or at least almost the same having 1-2 degrees span?

If anyone can shed light on their experience on these, would be really appreciated.

 

[sammer021486]

I do not have experience with anything other than the Zoo Med 500R thermostats, but you could save yourself some money and get a Herp Stat, which retails for $100-109 instead of $139 and from what I gather is a superior thermostat over the helix. As long as the mats are of the same wattage and preferrably the same manufacture all you would need is a power bar that you would plug the mats into then place the sensor probe in the middle tank to give you an average temperature between the 3 tanks.

But like I said I have no experience with either the helix or the herpstat. But it should be alright, just as long as you don't exceed the maximum wattage the device can support.

As for the ground prong on the power bar you can cut that off, because the majority of items that you buy for herps only have two prongs. Just do not use that power bar for any device that requires the grounding prong if you do cut the groun prong off. There is an adapter that you can use to make a 3 prong into a 2 prong. Or the other option is to purchase an extension cord that has 3 or more opens meant for 2 pronged devices only.

 

[vctkiller]

Great help sammer, been waiting the whole day for a reply!

 

[Vegas_Eric]

Hello VCT,

I own a few Helix units and 1 unit will work just fine for your application. I actually have 1 unit running two racks with 7 shelves each for a total of 14 shelves.

The Helix thermostat unit has three outlets on it, so you could run each of your shelves to each one of the three outlets, OR you could run heat tape if that's what your using in parallel like I do and have all three shelves run off only one of the outlets

Here is a great example on how to run flexwatt heat tape in parallel:

http://www.beanfarm.com/heating/Flexwatt_parallel.pdf

Just as an example. I have two racks. Each rack has 7 shelves for a total of 14 shelves. 1 rack has 7 shelves ran in parallel and are powered off one of my Helix's outlets and the other rack has 7 shelves that are run in parallel and plug into the second outlet on my Helix control unit. The third outlet is not currently being used.

Each shelf has 4 feet of 4" flexwatt for a total of 56 feet of 4" flexwatt being used (on both racks) and controlled off of 1 Helix Control Thermostat. 4" flexwatt comsumes 8 watts of power per foot. 8 watts time 56 feet is 448 watts of power. Each Helix unit can handle 500 watts of power, so I am almost at this units max capacity (but have a little wiggle room). If you needed to control more then 500 watts, you could even purchase an additional power module to control another 500 watts without having to purchase a whole new unit.

As you can see, you will have lots of room to upgrade if you get this unit.

I know you will like it and you can't go wrong with either a Helix or most of the other units out there.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Eric