Question on wiring home made racks

Here's the senerio:
Reciently I built a rack that holds 7 - 41qt Sterilites. It's heated with 11" flexwatt under 1/3rd of each tub and regulated with a Herpstat thermostat.

This weekend, I built a rack with the same dimensions except that only the bottom 5 shelves will holds 41qt tubs. The 2 top shelves will hold tubs for yearlings and will have a heating source seperate from the 5 lower shelves.

Here's the question:
Can I wire the 5 shelves and plug into the thermostat with the 7 shelf rack or will they heat unevenly due to the fact that one has 5 and one has 7. I know an option is to wire all 12 shelves together, but would rather have them wired seperately if it's a non-issue.

Thanx in advance!

I'm not clear on what you want to do but consider this. The thermostat regulates how much current flows through the Flex watt. The amount of heat put out is a function of the current and the length of the flex watt. All off this is controlled by the temperature of your probe.

If the shelves are different lengths, or the flex watt on the shelves are different lengths, you will get a different total wattage per shelf. Your thermostat is only aware of the temperature of the one shelf you have the probe on. The others may be some other temperature all together.

wade said:

I'm not clear on what you want to do but consider this. The thermostat regulates how much current flows through the Flex watt. The amount of heat put out is a function of the current and the length of the flex watt. All off this is controlled by the temperature of your probe.

If the shelves are different lengths, or the flex watt on the shelves are different lengths, you will get a different total wattage per shelf. Your thermostat is only aware of the temperature of the one shelf you have the probe on. The others may be some other temperature all together.

Click to expand...

I'll try to simplify my question. 11" flexwatt is 20 watts per foot. Each shelf has 1 foot. So the 7 shelf rack is a total of 140 watts and the 5 shelf rack is a total of 100 watts. They will be plugged into the same thermostat.

Will they heat differently since the total watts of each rack are different?

Hi Dwyn,
The way you are describing the set-up you should be OK as long you don't exceed the recommended wattage output of the rheostat. You could try this if extra rheostats are not an issue. You can make three separate heating "zones" like in a house. You could have your seven bin rack be maintained by one rheostat then separate the second rack, the one that contains two different sized bins, and have the section with the big bins be maintained by one rheostat and the second section be maintained by another. I do have a question. How are you heating the section of the rack with the small bins? I know you are using one piece of 11" Flexwatt on the big bins but how are you heating the smaller bins? Are you using 3" Flexwatt? I am not sure if the two different sized Flexwatt will heat evenly and the same as they are both different wattages. Hope this helps a bit.
Jay

Add On: I just got done building two new racks myself. I am waiting for the Flexwatt to arrive so I can wire it. I will take pictures as I go and post them. Maybe that will help as well. :shrugs:

Thanx Jay.

I'll be using a homemade rheostat with 3" flexwatt to heat the upper shelves seperate from the thermostat used for the 12 shelves heated with 11" flexwatt.

I'm going to just plug it an and check the heat for a day or two to see how it works. I don't know, maybe I'm just over-complicating things.:bang:

Feel free to post pics of your here. I'll post mine when it's complete too.