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Post by mar on Jan 16, 2004 11:23:42 GMT -8
Well I was using a the combination of a 150W Pearlco CHE and an Alife thermostat with a ceramic lamp base and no reflective hood and it burnt out the CHE. After three months of use the CHE appears to have melted the internal wireing of its screw socket. The lamp base and thermostat are fine. If you look down on a light bulb the screw part is aluminum and then there is a ring of ceramic insulation with a copper center. That copper center melted it self out. I got luckey, it did not short out and it happened on a sunney day so my room was warmer that normal. I am back to using a blue flood lamp on my thermostat now with a 75W white bulb adding additional daytime heat. If anyone wants to take a stab at why this happened here is my cage tesa.proboards24.com/index.cgi?board=housing&action=display&thread=1070852248
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Post by Yoda on Jan 16, 2004 16:04:54 GMT -8
I am pretty sure ...even the ceramic sockets have a wattage rating...and they are usually based upon (lights) and the ceramic elements can get much hotter. I would want a socket that is rated for
1.5 to 2x that of the Element you are using...
Just a thought
James and Yoda
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Post by SurvivorSteph on Jan 16, 2004 18:01:48 GMT -8
My husband is an electrician and he says that "Watts" is a measurement of energy... or heat. If a fixture is rated at 150 w, then a 150 w light or CHE should be fine in it. He says that he would feel more comfortable having it in a ceramic based fixture.
Our guess is that you purchased a faulty CHE. Somewhere in the mfg process something went wrong, and it wasn't caught in any inspection.
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Post by mar on Jan 19, 2004 9:13:39 GMT -8
It is/was in a ceramic lamp base.
The fixture and thermostat are fine it was the CHE itself that melted out.
I am a thrid year student in Electrical Engineering and Watts are a measure of energy of which we are concerned with heat. My fixture is rated to handle 250W (it is porciline and I made sure that there was no internal plastic as insulation) then I wired it with heat resistant insulated wire. That fixture is then controled by a thermostat.
This is all working fine with a 100 W flood lamp (blue in colour) now and the heat in the cage seems to be higher even with a net loss of 50W. I won't be moving back to a CHE any time soon, both the Zoo Med and, now, Pearlco have been too much trouble.
Mark
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Post by mar on Jan 20, 2004 11:50:14 GMT -8
OK I was close to asleep for my last post.
Watts is a measure of power [Joule/second]. Energy, in Joules, is the product of power and time [W*sec = (J/s)*s]
Hense a kilowatt hour is a werid measure of energy.
1000 W * 60 minutes
Heat is energy
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Post by SurvivorSteph on Jan 20, 2004 22:08:52 GMT -8
Joules... Watts... Heat... Energy... bottom line... you got a bum CHE.
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Post by mar on Jan 21, 2004 7:45:03 GMT -8
I designed this fixture to handle a new CHE and the still CHE died.
This is my second CHE to die. I am just giving up on them and going back to blue or red flood lights.
Mark
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Post by SurvivorSteph on Jan 23, 2004 19:55:56 GMT -8
I could never get a flood light to last.. I've had better luck with the CHE's. Good thing we have a variety of things to choose from! Sorry you've had so much trouble with the CHE's.
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