Satisfied with your heating control system?

[Tim_Cranwill]

I am in the market for a new heating control system and I wanted to "hit the street" to get an idea of what systems sSnakeSs members use and if they are happy with their current system.

I am looking for details/blueprints, past experiences (both good and bad), future plans, ideas, collection size, pictures or any other pertinent information on the subject. Basically it’s an open discussion on what you have used and are using and your thoughts on the like.

Hopefully this will become a useful "library" of sorts that we can look through to find what systems best suit our needs.

The poll is just to get an idea of what heating control systems people are using. Please add your comments and help the discussion get off the ground. :)

*** Please keep it to your experiences and refrain from bashing other’s systems. ;)

Thanks all! :D

[Tim_Cranwill]

At the moment, I am using dimmers and digital thermometers but I am not happy with the amount of control (or lack there of) that I have with this system. It can work but I have found too many instances where my temps aren't exactly what I thought they were… I’m pretty anal about that kind of thing (can we use the word anal?). :D

I am leaning towards using a Habitat Control System. I've heard good things about them and I like that they come with 4 individual probes to control 4 individual enclosures or racks. They also come with built-in night drop.... that's a nice feature. They also offer other features like a phone-dialer, PC interface and 6'-15' probes.

My other option is to buy several Helix systems. I have heard both good and bad (when compared to HCSs) things. They are expandable and offer most of the options the HCS offers but I am definitely leaning towards a HCS.

[BOAS_N_PYTHONS]

TIM:

Yup good starter post and we discussed before we both are thinking the Habitat Control System. I myself still use the digital thermometers with those 30 - 40$ temperature controls with either human heat pads or in larger cages radient heat panels.

Like we discuessed we are both leaning towards the Habitat Control System or Helix or that other device Jeff Ronnie has as well. These are the only 3 I know of and this post might bring us pro/cons on each to help us all decide better devices, replace old ones or upgrade indeed as for us.

Lets hope people give us there information they know with experience on each device and others I do not know of.

Lets rock and roll people this post is for better keeping of your animals and anyone and everyone can help us all attain the best control over temperatures for our loved animals.

Cya...

Tony

[BoidKeeper]

All my cages are ehated with exo-terra heat pads, zoo med heat pads of people pads. All are hooked to a dimmer and I adjust the heat with my laser temp. My ambiant in the snake room is controled by a thermostate. My ambiant doesn't change so my hot spots don't change.
Cheers,
Trevor

[Will]

Tim,

I use the same set-up as you are currently. And like you, I am starting to get frustrated with the lack of precise control I have over the heat tape on dimmers. Right now, and all the time really, the dimmer is just slightly above 'zero'. I can't really raise the temps much without going through the roof first, and then micro-adjusting from there. And I can't go much lower or it just shuts off. It's manageable now, but it's just annoying. Once I get a new rack, I'll put something else on there, for sure. Just don't know what yet...

For sure next year, I am buying a Helix(probably the basic one) for the incubator. Right now it's on a Wafer themostat, which worked perfectly fine this year, once you get it adjusted. The problem with that though, is that I have been told that the wafers are known to just crap out after a while, which would suck with a dozen clutches in there... Plus, the incubator(and snakes for that matter) are in an adjoined room to our bedroom - with no door, and hearing "CLICK, CLICK, CLICK" all night from the wafer's switch for 3 months WILL get annoying after awhile - trust me... ;)

[ChristinaM]

Personally I use heatrope for my snakes and bulbs for my dragons.

I have everything hooked up to dimmers, and monitor temps with an infared temp gun, and several cages have digi thermometers in them.

I have to admit here, my ambient herp room temps vary :(
My herp room is a spare bedroom on the second floor. During the winter temps are very stable. During the summer, that room, the door is always shut, and the temps vary. Example: yesterday was quite warm. The rest of the house was maintained at 78F via window AC's. The herp ROOM was at 86F. So of course I had to manually adjust everything to get the temps right.

IMHO: thermostats beat out dimmers hands down.

If it wasn't for the fact that I am a stay at home mom, I would be looking for something else or moving my herp room downstairs to my fish room which will be more stable in ambient room temp.

I think a stable room temp, plus a good thermostat/controller like the helix is a good idea, compared to what I do :)

[Cruciform]

Are there any temp control systems that hook into the weather network?

It would be great to be able to put in the code for the locale the snake is from and have it dial in the precise settings for their habitat, along with lighting times, etc.

Oh, to dream :)

[ChristinaM]

LOL @ Mike.
We can only dream aye.

[Cruciform]

If there's any heating control systems that plug into a parallel or USB port, all that's required is software to manage it.

Hmmmm. :)

[Siretsap]

The hard part of the software would be to get it to be able to read the weather network webcite. Getting it to recognise numbers and be able to read text to know what it is looking for.

[Tim_Cranwill]

But if it's 30C in Sao Paulo, Brazil, that doesn't mean your Brazilian Rainbow Boas should be kept at 30C that day... they would be hiding from the heat...

You would need the temps in the exact location of that species... in the jungle, under cover....

[Vengeance]

I currently use human heat pads hooked up to a rheostat. My major problem is the ambiant air temps, they change quite frequently depending on the day because I'm in a basment apt and have no controll over the central air. I'm in the process of picking up one of these.....

http://www.king snake.com/gcsreptiles/


I'm hopeing it will help me controll my hot spot tempatures a little better.

*edit*

ARGH! Even when you hid the url, they still ******* it out. Take out the space and it shoudl work.

[Tim_Cranwill]

I am looking pretty seriously at one of those. It will be that or a couple of these... http://www.boaphileplastics.com/thermostat.html

[Vengeance]

Yea I've seen those, I was considering them, But no night time drop and with the unit I got it costs less to go with a 4 probl unit then it does to get 4 singe units. Also central managment so you don't have to try and remember to turn down or turn up 4 diffrent units, it's all controlled on one. Just a matter of preferance and what your willing to spend.