I bought my first snake a little while back and wanting to provide the best I could bought a jet-005 thermostat it ran great for a few weeks always showing temp within •5 of a degree of thermometer but now even though it is winter and its much colder it says it's running 34 but thermometer reads 29 can't get it to heat much more and has anyone had an issue with this thermostat / any suggestions for a new one ?
If you want to cautiously test if it is a capacity/mat issue or a thermostat issue - You can do the following (This assumes that your thermostat probe is sensing temp from the surface against which the snake lies upon:
1. Unplug the heat mat from the Jet 005 and temporarily relocate your snake while testing.
2. Ensure that the Jet 005 is still pugged into power and turned on (so it will read the temp of the mat from the screen)
3. Plug the mat into a normal power socket (so it is not controlled by the Jet 005)
4. Watch and monitor (DO NOT GO AWAY!) the temps of the mat on the Jet 005 display when mat is plugged into the power continuously.
DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED WHILE DOING THIS - YOU MAT MAY GET A LOT HOTTER THAN YOU WANT IT TO AS YOU ARE NOT USING A THERMOSTAT.
If it reaches (or exceeds) temp easily when connected directly to power - it is your thermostat preventing the mat from heating up properly and you should look for a more appropriate thermostat for that size mat.
If it only gets to the same temps that it was when connected via the thermostat - It is likely that your mat is not installed or setup correctly, or is faulty etc...
IF the latter is the case I would be looking more at how it is installed and how you are measuring your temp (probe placement) as I have no problem getting surface temps through a tile of greater than 40c with a 15 wat mat. In most cases increasing the size of the mat does not always mean more heat as the mat wattage increased in relationship with the mat size - so the heat per Sq metre is the same. If measuring surface temps the mat size will make little difference - it will most likely be a faulty mat or an install/setup issue.