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Originally Posted by AdmYrrek
Anyway, I have seen some AWESOME things here. The Aztec temple hide someone posted in here kept me up a few nights just thinking about the engineering and the awesome and how I might do something similar. And so many others have been inspiring in sleep-preventing ways. But there are two things I've been curious about that I have not seen addressed.
Foam (which I understand most of the fun DIY habitat builds are constructed of in part or in full) in an insulation device. And many of the forms of foam I've interacted with are prone to melting. These are a pair of issues I'm concerned about.
Insulation issue: I know there needs to be some buffer between the snake and the UT, but does a tank feature using foam/a foam bottom prevent enough heat from reaching the snake? Conversely, if a feature constructed out of foam has a built in hide, would the insulative nature of the foam make the hide retain too much heat? If you've DIYed tank features with foam before, did you have these issues and if so, what did you do to work around them.
Melting issue: The foam I've interacted with and seen used here (from what I can tell from images) is that sort of plasticky, Styrofoam that can be carved and so on. Very much like the foam items used in making table-top gaming sets/backgrounds/maps/whatever.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil1ooo
Not sure if all snakes are the same as I feel this one just doesn't like heat at all and much prefers to produce his own body heat.
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Hey guys, just noticed this thread. Cool stuff, Phil, I can see you are used to working with your hands. And nice to see another gaming nerd on the boards.
Body heat:
Just a small clarification, reptiles produce minimal body heat and that's the point of a warm hide - basically they can't rise their own body temp. Going from 20'C to 30'C temperature boosts chemical and physiological processes such as digesting the food or preparing for a shed significantly.
It's a good thing to have a warm hide available, even if the snake wouldn't use it much. If your day temps are high, you could always use a timer so the UTH is on only during the cool nights.
On foam:
I'm familiar with the foam, I've been using it as a craft material. It's commonly known as expanded polystyrene or EPS. Packing styrofoam is very light form of EPS, the building insulation sheets are a denser version, basically like compressed styrofoam. I think EPS doesn't melt with temperatures associated with UTHs, as UTHs don't get blistering hot. Sure way of testing this would be putting a small piece of foam directly on UTH, maybe a piece of baking paper in between, so if it melts it doesn't stick.
Foam is a very good insulator, so a thick slice of foam underneath a hide would definitely keep the hide cold. A solution is simply to make a hide without a bottom. A cheap thermometer with a wired probe is an easy way to check hide temp - blutack can be used to attach the probe in place.
When I've made foam stuff, I've simply painted it with water-based paints (solvents melt foam surface) and finished them with some water-based clear coat - although a layer of paint would protect the foam from solvent based clear. If you need more protection, for example to make sure you can hose the cage, foam can coated with epoxy resin, as it doesn't melt the foam. I've used silicone to attach foam on glass, and small/removable things can be attached with blutack.
One more thing when making more fancy structures: make sure they're easy to dismantle and clean. On my first structures, my snake managed to poop in most hard to clean crevice there is, and took me 30 minutes to get all the stuff out
Now I cover all the cracks, corners and such with thick silicone. Magnets are a good way of attaching halves together, epoxy putty like Milliput can be used for attaching magnets on foam.