Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

mark67123 · Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 10:33 pm Post subject: Dimmer switches with heatmats?

Was looking through an old thread (On another forum!) about heat mats and noticed your posts (Scott W) about using dimmer switches.
Sounds like a good idea which I'd like to try but just worried about the wattage - all the dimmers I currently use (For spot bulbs - Homebase own brand) are min.40w, the largest mat I use is about half that.

Does this matter, as mats are non-light emmitting, or is there a make of dimmer with no minimum load?

Regards,
Mark.

Scott W · Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 10:44 pm Post subject:

Hi Mark,

that was an old thread you found...lol, hope you blew the dust off!

That may well be a problem, could you test it in a safe area? I would guess that it would still work as most dimmers seem to go from full power to off.

I used to wire several cages together, I guess that's why I never noticed any problems (think it was 4 29"x11" heat pads in each batch).

Is there a reason you don't want to use a dimming stat or pulse?
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Please DO NOT pm orders for reptiles, send email instead scott@captivebred.co.uk

mark67123 · Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2005 12:21 pm Post subject:

Could run a test but question is, how long for? How long would it take for a problem to show?

I have 4 vivs with mats but due to lack of space they're in different rooms, so there's no way of wiring them all into one. Max combined wattage of the 3 I have together is only 34w so still not really enough!

All are used solely to create a warm area at night (using incandescent bulbs for daytime heat) and are currently on on/off stats but the temp still fluctuates by up to 8degF (despite probes being directly on the mat surface) which is too much for my liking.

Reason for not using pulse or dimmer stats at the moment is purely the cost. Planning to change all vivs over to ceramics/pulse stats eventually but with Xmas and various other bills it's going to be a while so was looking for a cheap improvement for the mats in the meantime.

Reckon I'll have to stick with the on/off stats for now, unless i can find a dimmer with no min load - don't want to take any risks.

Cheers for the help anyway,

Mark.

peterf · Key Member Joined: 03 Nov 2005 Posts: 251 Location: UK

Dimmers need a minimum load of 40 watts to work effectively. There is no testing required if this is achieved. You can use a pulse proportional thermostat however, and that has no minimum load requirement.

mark67123 · Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 10:53 pm Post subject:

Cheers for the reply, reckon I'll have to give up on the dimmers then!