• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Question about flexwatt malfunction

jenneses

jenneses

Confuzzled
When I went to feed yesterday I noticed that 2 snakes had passed away overnight. They were next to each other, sharing the same strip of flexwatt. Both look dried and their waterbowls were empty (gave them water the day before and they were fine). I used my laser temp gun and the tubs read over 100 degrees. I checked all the other tubs in that rack and they registered 81-84 degrees. So that strip must have malfunctioned or something.

So my question is this: Can I cut power to that particular strip safely and without affecting the other strips that are wired into the series? I'm a little concerned that further use could cause a fire.
 
Last edited:
I'd need pics of how you have it wired but I think if you just cut the wire and reattach to the wire for the next strip that should bypass that level. Or cut the wires from the strip and cap them. However the second may cut off power to other strips if they are linked. If your strips are wired so all are on one rheostat or whatever then you will need to splice the lines to remove the malfunctioning strip. You should later be able to install a replacement strip if you want to by seperating the joins and hooking up the new piece.
 
It sounds, to me, like you may need to re-wire your system. It may be why the strip malfunctioned and your snakes died. You should never have heat strips in series, they should always be wired up parallel. Wiring them up in series may draw way too much current through them, thus ultimately having failed elements. If this terminology is not understood, you should be able to look it up online under basic electrical circuits.
 
I think the safeset thing to do would be rewiring the entire system. I know it's more work than you want to do, but you can simply eliminate the wiring to the faulty strip and use longer jumpers to attach to the final strip. Sorry for your loss Jen.
 
Hey,

I would like to see a picture as well. I'm a newbie and I would like to avoid something like this. Can you add some pictures and also describe how you assembled your system? How are your connections made, crimps or solder? The area that concerns you; where is it located in connection/position to the cord, i.e. is it the first/closest section to the cord or the middle or last/end part. Did you daisy chain the sections to so it is on one electrical cord? what thermostat are you using? How long have you used this system before the malfunction? Has it been working fine for several months/weeks?

It would be great if you could provide lots of detail for others to learn from. I'm sorry you lost some of your snakes. Props to you for being open and expressing what happened; some people might be too embarrassed to talk about a mistake or unfortunate event like this.

--Chet
 
I apologize for not linking this earlier. Completely forgot about this. This may help for your set up (less confusing than trying to learn electrical systems).

http://www.beanfarm.com/heating/Flexwatt_parallel.pdf

And I do agree, really sorry you've lost a few of your snakes:(

I should also add, that if you do have your systems wired up as depicted on the link than you would be safe to eliminate the one bad strip out of the set- it will not effect the system any. Just be sure to either remove the entire wire/wires that went to the bad element or tape over the bare wire ends to prevent a shock hazard.
 
Thank you everyone for the kind words and all your help. I'm still so upset about losing those two.

I'll have to talk to my brother or cousin about re-wiring (both electricians). Maybe I'll just buy another set prewired through RBI. They are wired just like the link from Bean Farm.

Just in case anyone was concerned, I have set up a space heater for that corner of the room and unplugged the flexwatt (and thermostat).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top