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flexwatt wiring help?

Silvergrin

Silvergrin

New member
So, I've used flexwatt before and things seemed fine. I've been following this page on wiring and yet...
I have ~1ft wide flexwatt, and I was hoping to use 1ft long segments to provide a warm spot in some cages I've been building. Today I tried wiring up a segment, only to find that it barely feels warm when plugged into an outlet. I will of course be using a thermostat with these, but at the moment a single one doesn't seem to generate enough heat. I've fiddled with the connections a lot and still can't seem to get them very warm; what do you think? Does a 1ft x 1ft piece of flexiwatt just not generate much warmth? Or is there likely still some problem with my connection?
 
I had a similar problem when i made a rack this year. I moved connection to the other side and taped off the old side. It did get warmed.. which method did you use. I solder mine. I never have any luck with the clips. :nope:
 
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Well first I tried the clips with the copper wires folded in,
Then that wasn't working well so I tried scraping off the plastic and reclipping with the wires sandwiched between the clips and the metal band.

The flexwatt gets a little warm, but I'm not confident it's providing enough heat.

I'll try soldering next, I just don't want to mess up the flexwatt worse if there's some kind of other problem...
 
I used solder on all of mine except the first one I bought prewired.
They do seem to take a while to get going, so I wouldn't worry to much about that. But don't be fooled! I have used one with a defective thermostat before when I was testing a setup, no snake was in it yet, and it got up to 150 before I discovered it. It had turned all hard and warped and I had to throw it away. Thank god I didn't have a snake in there.
I would suggest setting it up as you would as a test with thermostat, walk away and look at it the next day. I'll bet it will be up to temp...
 
I don't have experience with flexwatt, but with my UTH it barely feels warm when it gets the floor of my viv to well over 90 degrees. You are best off following tom e's idea and checking with a thermometer w/ probe. You want to see the temperature after the flexwatt has warmed up for a nice long time and see how the viv conducts the heat.
 
Okay, sounds like a plan. I had tried it with my temp gun and it only got to ~95 or so after 5 min (ambient temp is 70-75ish). But I will go ahead and wire it up to the therm and see how it goes... I definitely don't feel comfortable leaving it plugged into the wall unattended even if it doesn't feel hot O-o
 
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