Heat Panel Placement

[Skitzmixer]

Almost finished my 3 Bay Enclosure and now im just trying to work out the best location for each of my heat panels for each enclosure. Advice would be great

Below is how I'm thinking about mounting the heat panel for the middle enclosure (Coastal Carpet) this way it has two spots to work out which it likes the best.



Black: Left over bit of melamine (act as mounting for the panel)
Red: ProHerp Panel
Green: Piece of Slate
Yellow Circle: Thermostat Probe

The very top enclosure will be for my green tree python, and i think i will be mounting the panel on the roof of the enclosure. I'm hoping the heat from the 2 enclosures below will help keep the heat up a bit (GTP's to small at the moment for it so i have a while to play around with it).

The bottom enclosure is for a BHP. I'm not sure yet if i want to mount the heat panel the same as the middle enclosure, or if i just remove it completely and use a heat cord under a tile and cover the tile up with substrate.

What should i do?

--- Also slightly off topic. Is there any harm in using spray cans to paint parts of the enclosure?

 

[Justdragons]

I cannot shed any light on placement of panels, however im very interested in the end product. Please post photos once done if you can?
Jd

 

[saximus]

This is how I'd do it but keep in mind I've never built bay enclosures, only singles.

Mount the panel on the roof of the bottom panel to create a basking spot for the BHP. Put the thermostat probe for that enclosure somewhere in the middle but closer to the heat panel. Play around with thermo settings rather than probe placement and measure air and surface temps till you're happy.
Mount the middle one like you've already suggested but, again put the probe in a similar position to the bottom one and play with thermo settings. I've used this configuration and the snake seems to use the various types of heat quite a bit. Some days she will sit on top and get belly heat (usually after a meal) and some days she will sit under it and bask.
Mount the top panel on the side of the enclosure to produce an air temp gradient (more important than basking temp for GTPs).

You could also mount the bottom one the same as the middle one but make sure you really reinforce the shelf to hold the weight of a BHP.

All three will affect each other (especially the bottom two) so make sure you test them all together rather than individually. I agree with JD, I'd be quite interested to see pics and hear how effective it ends up being.

For the last question - spray paint is fine but just make sure it has plenty of time to air out.
Hope that helps

 

[JM1982]

Message the guys at 'Pro Herp' they will tell you where the best spot is

 

[Skitzmixer]

Message the guys at 'Pro Herp' they will tell you where the best spot is

haha well thats to obvious for me to do. I've spoken to James a fews times, he's a really great bloke. He has helped alot with other questions i've had. I just wanted to see what other people had in mind. I'm sure someone else has tried to tackle what im thinking about doing.

 

[JM1982]

So Skitznixer,
What updates do you have!

 

[Skitzmixer]

Well I finished my enclosure, so I guess that's a good start I didn't end up mounting the panel the way I was thinking about purely because by the time I put the support in place, added the heat panel, then the tile it just started to take up way to much room and I didn't like the look of it, so I'll use that idea when I build my next enclosure (but I'll be making it a bit taller).

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I've got a ProHerp panel mounted on the roof of the top and bottom enclosure (running off the same pulse proportional thermostat) and then in the middle enclosure I have a 12v MR16 down light pointing over a tile which heats it up to 34 degree's by itself. I found that the heat from the bottom enclosure created a nice warm spot above it (in the middle enclosure) but didn't really heat up the middle enclosure all that much which was perfect. The reason I have the top and bottom enclosure on the same thermostat is because they both have the same heat panel and are placed in the same spot and as I mentioned before there was little heat transferring from the bottom to the middle enclosure - so in this situation it worked out well.

I still have a bit of work to go with adding branches and things but i'll get there eventually.

Also I forgot to mention I added 2 switches, one controls the middle and another the top and bottom (the red LED's) the pythons in are usually only out at night so no point having them on as well during the day

 

[Snowman]

That's how I do it. Though I make my own heat panels with a heat cord and coreflute.

 

[Snowman]

View attachment 289316
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Looks good. I always find having the heat globe at one end gives a better temperature gradient though, rather than having it in the middle.
Really nice finish on the cabinet.

 

[Skitzmixer]

That's how I do it. Though I make my own heat panels with a heat cord and coreflute.

Looks really good, I had a bunch of those supports you used as well ready to go, but it just started to look to bulky for my liking. Plus the size of the heat panel itself was rather big so decided to scrap that idea for now. I've been meaning to give the coreflute heat cord idea a go for a while now - i should really get onto that.

 

[Snowman]

yeah the brackets are ugly as Mine are kept in a reptile room rather than out on display in the living area. I only have one display enclosure in the house.

 

[Skitzmixer]

Looks good. I always find having the heat globe at one end gives a better temperature gradient though, rather than having it in the middle.
Really nice finish on the cabinet.

Couldn't agree more, I was planning on having that one as an LED like the other 2 enclosures but it just so happened that the one globe provided sufficient heat. So I just left it and monitored the hell out of it to make sure there was still a gradient and there was, the MR16 only heated the tile under it.

 

[JM1982]

NICE WORK! Ill send you a pic of myn when I get round to finishing it, give me 12months or so...