2
2.1SRR.YYC
Guest
I just finished my adult leopard gecko rack. Here are some pictures of the various stages of construction.
It may be a while before I get back in the families good books after spending many hours on this one...
The guy at Home Depot was great about cutting all the pieces for nothing. The entire rack came out of two 4x8 sheets of 5/8 melamine. Note...a 4x8 sheet of melamine is not 4' x 8'...it's slightly larger so I needed more cuts than I thought.
The top and first shelf were installed while the pieces were on their face on the floor. I used 5/8 melamine and 2221 Rubbermaid tubs...
I then set the unit on its top and used six small pieces of pexiglass as spacers between the tops of the tubs (bottom in the pictures) and the shelves. You can just make them out in this picture...
Unit is now upside right. Shelves are installed and the front trim is complete. Now I'm working on the first 4" flexwatt install...
Back of rack with first four rows of flexwatt installed...
At first I was using 16 gauge wire (extension cord) with nuts and bolts to wire the flexwatt. I didn't want to put any holes in my nice new shelves. This setup caused the flexwatt to sit up at the business end and caused the metal tape to rise up off the shelf. I bit the bullet and changed over to wood screws to secure the flexwatt and wire connectors. It worked much better...Thanks for the idea Greg!!
This is the tub I used...Zellers was the best place to find them...almost $13 each.
I used the red (high temperature) silicone to seal the connections from moisture and little gecko feet...
I created this niffty "rats nest" of wires from a wiring block I found at a local electronics shop. I used one to connect the top four shelves and another one for the botton three shelves. If I want to disconnect a shelf I simply loosen the locking screw and pull out one wire for that shelf. If I want to connect all the shelves to one controller then I jumper the two blocks together. It's not the most elegant solution but it works.
I used pegboard for the back of the unit. It keeps the heat in and still allows some air circulation. As an added benefit it makes the unit much more rigid. Here you can see the wiring before I cleaned it up and the wiring for the two temperature probes.
Here's the completed unit in it's new home. It ain't going very far, it weighs a ton!
Here's a quick rundown on cost in CAD...
tubs 182 (if you buy all 14)
flexwatt 90
melamine 46
metal tape 25
wire 20
trim and glue 20
hardware 15
total 398
On the labour front it took about 30 hours of blood, sweat and beers...
Now the hard part, finding geckos worthing of such palatial digs.
Stay tuned for Rack Part II, The Hatchling!
Steve
It may be a while before I get back in the families good books after spending many hours on this one...
The guy at Home Depot was great about cutting all the pieces for nothing. The entire rack came out of two 4x8 sheets of 5/8 melamine. Note...a 4x8 sheet of melamine is not 4' x 8'...it's slightly larger so I needed more cuts than I thought.
The top and first shelf were installed while the pieces were on their face on the floor. I used 5/8 melamine and 2221 Rubbermaid tubs...
I then set the unit on its top and used six small pieces of pexiglass as spacers between the tops of the tubs (bottom in the pictures) and the shelves. You can just make them out in this picture...
Unit is now upside right. Shelves are installed and the front trim is complete. Now I'm working on the first 4" flexwatt install...
Back of rack with first four rows of flexwatt installed...
At first I was using 16 gauge wire (extension cord) with nuts and bolts to wire the flexwatt. I didn't want to put any holes in my nice new shelves. This setup caused the flexwatt to sit up at the business end and caused the metal tape to rise up off the shelf. I bit the bullet and changed over to wood screws to secure the flexwatt and wire connectors. It worked much better...Thanks for the idea Greg!!
This is the tub I used...Zellers was the best place to find them...almost $13 each.
I used the red (high temperature) silicone to seal the connections from moisture and little gecko feet...
I created this niffty "rats nest" of wires from a wiring block I found at a local electronics shop. I used one to connect the top four shelves and another one for the botton three shelves. If I want to disconnect a shelf I simply loosen the locking screw and pull out one wire for that shelf. If I want to connect all the shelves to one controller then I jumper the two blocks together. It's not the most elegant solution but it works.
I used pegboard for the back of the unit. It keeps the heat in and still allows some air circulation. As an added benefit it makes the unit much more rigid. Here you can see the wiring before I cleaned it up and the wiring for the two temperature probes.
Here's the completed unit in it's new home. It ain't going very far, it weighs a ton!
Here's a quick rundown on cost in CAD...
tubs 182 (if you buy all 14)
flexwatt 90
melamine 46
metal tape 25
wire 20
trim and glue 20
hardware 15
total 398
On the labour front it took about 30 hours of blood, sweat and beers...
Now the hard part, finding geckos worthing of such palatial digs.
Stay tuned for Rack Part II, The Hatchling!
Steve
