Need help! Flexwatt just melted through one of my tupperwares!!

[justin-branam]

Good thing i came home between classes, because i smelled burning rubber/plastic. i quickly traced it to my rack system and discovered one of the sweater boxes had a 1" hole melted through it. the heat tape is shriveled looking, and the actual rack began to burn. i am trying to figure out how this happened. It only happened to 1 sweater box, but the dimmer knob (zoo med extension cord with the dimmer knob on it) has not been changed since day one, the temps have been stable at 90-92 on the floor of each cage) and the room temp has not fluctuated at all (yes i am sure of all of this). This really has me worried. Has this ever happened to anyone else? thankfuly the gecko in there was smart enough to move to the cool side.

 

[moosassah]

I don't have an answer for the hot spot. Maybe try contacting the company? Glad you were able to prevent anything worse from happening.

 

[Jeanne]

Wow, I don't know how that would happen, and I believe it has happened to people in the past, not sure whom though.

I am glad that you came home and found it before it did some real damage. You and your Geckos are very lucky!

 

[ExcessiveHerps]

I think Marcia had something liek that happen. But Wouldn't the tap have to be liek 15- plus degrees? I don't see how it is possible at 90-92, did you check the heat tape temp when you found it like that? Are you sure the dimmer didn't malfunction? I've had my tubs at over 120 degrees with my old cheapo thermostats and they showed no signs of burning.

 

[BalloonzForU]

I have to agree that the temps had to have gone up to at least 150 for the tub to start melting. What are those three or four horizontal melting points from, on the heat tape?

 

[NaughtyDawg]

My $0.02 worth. You have to be very careful with this stuff. It is a fire hazard if not done correctly.

1. You have to solder your connections or at least use a terminal block for the connections.

2. It should not touch anything including the rack and tubs.

3. It should NOT be used with on/off type thermostats. With these thermostats it is like plugging your heat tape into the wall, its all or nothing. This stuff gets quite hot when that happens and I am not surprised when it melts. It should be connected to a proportional thermostat only.

The tape should be used to heat the air around it and therefore the end of the containers, not the containers themselves.

I have mine sitting on ceramic standoffs on the back of the rack so it does not actually touch the rack, and the tubs are pushed in close so they don't actually touch it either and I use a herpstat to control it. The tape connections are done with terminal blocks, covered in heat shrink, rubber wrapped around that and taped with electrical tape and it still makes me nervous.

I know here in Canada anything like this needs to CSA approved. If it burned your house down up here I would be very interested in hearing what the insurance company would say, expecially with all those home made connections.

That looks like 3" flexwatt, and I have heard of this stuff burning through.

This is only my opinion for what it is worth.

 

[TheHiddenGecko]

This happened to me once. I'm pretty sure it is because the moist hide became really dry and instead of the flexwatt heating up the water from the moist hide, it heated up dry vermiculite and plastic which made it get even hotter and burn right threw it. Is your hole where the humid hide was?

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

It happened to me twice in the past 10 years, and both times I had used the clips for wiring the flexwatt and had them on a rheostat. Now, I no longer use flexwatt at all. All 12 of my 20 gal long breeder tanks are on commercial heat pads on controllers, and my racks are all heated with heat cable.

Like Rick said, it is very important to have air circulation between the heat tape and the bottom of the tub. Even still, sometimes I think the flexwatt can become faulty and go haywire. Scary.

 

[justin-branam]

This happened to me once. I'm pretty sure it is because the moist hide became really dry and instead of the flexwatt heating up the water from the moist hide, it heated up dry vermiculite and plastic which made it get even hotter and burn right threw it. Is your hole where the humid hide was?

actually this is where it happened. i did switch from moss to vermiculite about 2 weeks ago. what did you do to fix the problem?

wierd thing is, i turned the temp down to half what it was on, and have left the tub off the tape now for over almost 3 hours, and that one spot on the tape is super hot, while the rest of the tape is just warm to the touch. i guess ill contact the manufacturer anyways to see why that one spot is so much hotter than the rest. seems like the tape would be the same temp for the entire length.

 

[justin-branam]

I have to agree that the temps had to have gone up to at least 150 for the tub to start melting. What are those three or four horizontal melting points from, on the heat tape?

the plastic on the tape started to shrivel up lengthwise from the heat.

 

[NaughtyDawg]

actually this is where it happened. i did switch from moss to vermiculite about 2 weeks ago. what did you do to fix the problem?

wierd thing is, i turned the temp down to half what it was on, and have left the tub off the tape now for over almost 3 hours, and that one spot on the tape is super hot, while the rest of the tape is just warm to the touch. i guess ill contact the manufacturer anyways to see why that one spot is so much hotter than the rest. seems like the tape would be the same temp for the entire length.

Justin,

You are asking for trouble, that tape is shot and I would NOT leave it running. The problem you encountered with the tape has absolutely nothing to do with whether you had moss or vermiculite in the moist hide. The tape is only worth about $2/ft, throw it out.

 

[Sunrise Reptile]

By the looks of that tape, you were literally minutes from walking into an inferno. Consider yourself very lucky!

 

[justin-branam]

Live and learn! It looks like i will be replacing the flexwatt with insulated heating cable that will fit into a routed groove under each tub (thanks to Golden Gate Geckos for the info on that). Hope others can be aware of the potential problems with flexwatt.