Monday, September 19, 2011

How to control 4 heat mats with one thermostat?

I don't get how you control 4 heat mats with 1 thermostat how do you do that?How to control 4 heat mats with one thermostat?Quixotic is correct. You can *power* 4 heat mats from the one 'stat (as long as the combined wattage of the 4 mats is within the rating of the thermostat) and the probe can sense the temperature produced by one of the 4 mats.



Assuming the mats are the same power, make and all operating within expected parameters, and they are being used in the same way (i.e. same depth and density of substrate if used under tanks, same ambient temperature, etc) then it is likely(ish!) that they will be maintaining similar temperatures.



This set up is far from ideal, though, as you have so protection if one fails and overheats (assuming it isn't the one that is being monitored) and cheap, mass produced products for the pet trade can have a considerable degree of variation in performance, so one or more may never reach the target temperature if the one being monitored is the more efficient of the group.



Ideally each mat should be controlled independently. You can buy thermostats with separate channels that are designed to control several heat sources, rather than having a single output.How to control 4 heat mats with one thermostat?A thermostat is a lot like a dimmer switch. There's a place in the thermostat to plug in electronic devices. The thermostat controls the amount of electricity traveling to those devices. So all you have to do is plug in a multi outlet adapter to the thermostat. That way you can plug in multiple heat mats to one thermostat through the adapter outlet. But you cannot change temps of the individual mats.

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