Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[DrAdam]

Hi

I have bought some heat cable that needs connecting to a plug. Both ends are exposed. There seems to be a spirally bound wire which is the element which is wrapped around some fibres.
I phoned the guys at parasene and they say that there is two wires and they need terminating at one end and then connecting to a plug, but I cant find the other wire !!!! Can someone help ?

Thanks

Adam
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[Rick_Albig]

If you post some pics it might help. It would be very irresponsible to give you advice on-line without seeing EXACTLY the cable you are talking about.

O and yes i am an electrician/engineer

Rick

[James]

Sounds strange, ive never used heat cable myself but if you post a pic we can work it out together.

James
Electronic Engineer

[DrAdam]

Hi

There only seems to be one wire, which is the very thin one wrapped aroud some thin fibres Surely there needs to be two wires unless it is made into a loop ?


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[DrAdam]

Just got an email off the guy I have bought it off and you need to connect it as a loop
I was I knew that before I bought it ..... never mind..
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[reeve105a]

Ive never used heat cable but it doesn't look complete. The heating cable I've seen looks a lot safer. If I was you I'd wait for some advice from an electrician on the forum. Sorry if my comments wrong, but I'd hate you to injure yourself or worse.

I thought Parasene heat cable looks like this.


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[DrAdam]

yep thats parasene. The reason you can have one end terminated on that is because there are two wires running inside which means one can act as the neutral. Mine looks like its a crappy version that needs to be looped to create a circuit.... which means that the 100ft I bought is now only 50ft...
Ah well, trying to save a few quid, i should have stuck with the parasene
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[Rick_Albig]

Yep looks like you have it right. Both ends will need to be connected up to compleat the circuit, one to the live and one to the neutral.

Make sure you use an appropriate size fuse in your plkug as well. If you do not know how to work this out let me know the wattage and ill help.

Be very careful how you terminate the ends, you dont wanna short them! It may be easier to terminate them into some terminal block and make sure the ends are well insulated. It will be easier then to run a small piece of flex to a plug, this flex can be as long as you like which means you can have the heat tape starting from where ever you like as apposed to it starting right at the plug (hope all that made sence )

Rick

[DrAdam]

Yep I'm going to put them into a junction box and then connect to a flex. I wasnt planning on using it doubled up so may just use some in the incubators and store the rest. I much prefer the single run of parasene instead of my bodged effort...it runs at 230V and is quoted to have an output of 75W so I calculate the current as around .32A
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My website isn't quite there yet, as I got bored half way through writing it.

Never take life too seriously, no-one gets out alive anyway

[Rick_Albig]