halogen lights

[Pythonlovers]

hey everyone,
just curious to know what are the pros and cons of using halogen lights in your enclosures?
i would like to know as i wanting to build a enclosure and have seen nice setups with them.
eg: do the produce enough heat, do you use thermostats with them etc.

 

[Bez84]

Ive used both the 240v gu10 50w halogens (flat ones) and the es fitting ones that look like standard light bulbs.
Both work well and produce loads of heat..
In my 4 foot enclosures i currently use the screw fitting halogen bulbs.. 28w for summer and 52w in winter..
Cost $2 each from go lo.
They are hooked to thermostats.

 

[bigjoediver]

Pros - cheap and easily obtainable
Cons- not much use at night.

I use them as basking lamps on a timer with supplementary heating in the form of heat cords on a thermostat. If your herp room temps are reasonably stable it's not that hard to match lamp wattage to the enclosure especially as these lamps are so cheap you can get a few different ones to try. Even if you are running them in dimming stats you should try to get the wattage close to minimize cycling and maintain a good photo cycle.

 

[Pythonlovers]

cheers guys! any more info on them? could you use them in a sense of just lighting the enclosure up? cause they make enclosures look real nice, or do they produce to much heat that way?

 

[saximus]

If you use LED ones they produce light with virtually no heat so you could use a combination of halogen and LED

 

[Gruni]

cheers guys! any more info on them? could you use them in a sense of just lighting the enclosure up? cause they make enclosures look real nice, or do they produce to much heat that way?

It would depend a lot on the wattage you use and how large you enclosure is as well as how long you tend to leave your display lights on for. If you just want to light your enclosure why not use HID lights that use less power and produce no significant heat and are very bright?

 

[Pilbarensis]

I use 50w par 20 halogens from bunnings for small monitors - they work superbly and save a lot on the electricity bills.

 

[Pythonlovers]

cheers!
Gruni - what are these HID lights you speak of? i have never heard of them haha

should probably mention what im building fro hah either a double enclosure for a breeding pair of either womas or bhp, or im gonna build a display enclosure for a pair of boyds.

 

[Gruni]

High intensity LED lights. The newer LED camping lights use them and I have a three light version that is brighter than the 60 LED batton I had before. You can also get them as driving lights for motorbikes and cars too and as lights for cyclists.

 

[Pythonlovers]

oh wow! thats some intense lighting haha

 

[Gruni]

Go to a Jaycar store and get them to show you some HID kits. My local autoelectrician is also a Jaycar seller and he has the torches I talked about as well as vehicle options. They are very impressive and certainly a serious option when the heat of a halogen is a concern.

 

[Pythonlovers]

Hey gruni, thanks for the advice, lucky enough there is a jaycar just down the road, so I think I might go down this weekend and have a look/ask them