I am of the school that "All Heat Sources" (pads, panels, emitters or lamps) should be used along with a thermostat. I have 4 heat pads 3 of them are "ZooMed" and 1 is a "Zilla" and all of them if plugged directly into an outlet will hit well over 130 degrees. I have 1 pad (can't recall which one) that hits 141 degrees. Some of the Emitters can hit 300 degrees or more.
Needless to say, I use thermostats on my pads and frequently measure the heat transfer through the bottom glass to make sure the temperature is staying around 85 degrees. (I actually have to set the pad temps to about 94 to 96 degrees, by the time the heat comes through the glass and the pad, it's 85 inside the Hide Box.)
"Back in the Day" 35 years or so ago, I did not have access to thermostats, and I used to keep all my old newspapers. I found putting about a 1 inch thickness of newspaper over the bottom of the cage, dissipated the heat down to the level I wanted for my Boa which I had at the time.
The bottom line - I would "Never" plug in a heat pad and simply allow the snake to get near it without something to dissipate the heat or a good performing thermostat.
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