CHE overheated remarkably

Loohan

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I had a 50W Fuxin CHE, the kind with the flared 9cm diameter on a stem. It got so hot it scorched the newspaper i unscrewed it with a short while after turning it off. Only a couple minutes later did it occur to me to get a temp read on it and it was still like 450 F!
Of course it was on a thermostat and luckily i caught it before it completely supernova'ed.
Turtle has been hanging out at opposite end of enclosure lately.
 

Maro2Bear

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I had a 50W Fuxin CHE, the kind with the flared 9cm diameter on a stem. It got so hot it scorched the newspaper i unscrewed it with a short while after turning it off. Only a couple minutes later did it occur to me to get a temp read on it and it was still like 450 F!
Of course it was on a thermostat and luckily i caught it before it completely supernova'ed.
Turtle has been hanging out at opposite end of enclosure lately.


Sooo, a faulty thermostat? Or the probe was faulty? What do u think happened?
 

vladimir

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Was it on a thermostat?

I remember using an infrared temp gun right on the surface of the CHE and seeing a reading of around 375 F a few years ago. Those things get HOT.
 

Loohan

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Thermostat is fine and i replaced the CHE with a different one (different model too in case it matters).

When i noticed how hot the thing was, i turned it off and immediately tried to unscrew it wearing a cheap yellow glove with rubbery texture:
https://s7d2.scene7.com/is/image/galeton/1070_A?wid=380&fmt=jpeg&qlt=80,0&resMode=sharp
whereupon the glove instantly melted some and the smoke stunk up the room so i had to open windows.
And remember, this was only a 50W CHE and it was operating in a room that was almost as warm as the CHE thermostat was set at.
 

Relic

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Newspaper is a bit dangerous as a substrate when high heat sources are nearby. It doesn't retain humidity well and quickly dries out. I realize it is a very economical solution for a substrate, especially with juveniles, but after inadvertently setting my apartment on fire 43 years ago with that type of set-up, I learned a hard lesson.
 

Loohan

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Newspaper is a bit dangerous as a substrate when high heat sources are nearby. It doesn't retain humidity well and quickly dries out. I realize it is a very economical solution for a substrate, especially with juveniles, but after inadvertently setting my apartment on fire 43 years ago with that type of set-up, I learned a hard lesson.
I agree and never considered using it.
"It got so hot it scorched the newspaper i unscrewed it with a short while after turning it off." That means that after scorching my glove i grabbed some paper to insulate my fingers.
 

Yvonne G

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Even on a thermostat the CHE will get pretty hot. In order for the temperature to reach the setting the probe is dialed in for, the actual CHE unit has to get hot enough to heat up the surrounding air. They warn you right on the package that it gets hot and don't touch it. But over 400F degrees - wow! That's HOT!
 

Markw84

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CHE's are hot! They also take bit of time to cool down when turned off. The CHE's we use in reptile enclosures are made to operate at 400°- 500°f. That is the heat they generate to produce the wavelength of IR that they are made for. The filament of a regular incandescent bulb operates at about 4500°f but has a glass bulb protecting it. So CHE's are hot. The will indeed burn you. That is why a lizzard or snake enclosure, where the animal can get to the heat source, would use a radiant heat panel instead. A radiant heat panel operates at about 110°. So even if you touch it, it will not burn you.
 

Loohan

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I dug it out of the trash and fired it up for 10 minutes in another fixture.
I got reads as high as 650 on one gun and over 600 on the other. But after a couple seconds both would say "Err" so i suspect the actual temps may be much higher and the guns don't go that far.
This is with the face of the CHE facing straight up in the cool mud room where the heat can dissipate easily.
Does this seem normal?
 

Loohan

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I ran it for hours as a space heater after that. It seems to be steady around 540 now. Actually the temp read jumps around a lot, occasionally past 600 for a fraction of a second, but if i hold the gun steady and out of the direct path of the heat it seems around 540 on average. Hasn't burned out as one might expect if it was failing.
I tried a small 50W CHE and it's more like 480-ish. So i guess i overreacted.
It may be that the wattage claims are not precise.

EXCEPT that, what happened was -- i actually have 2 enclosures on one thermostat. One probe in the one that had this hot CHE and no probe in the other. I monitor pretty often to make sure the temps are about the same in both enclosures. Which usually they are within a degree or so.
But then this morning the one enclosure was about 10 degrees hotter and stayed that way for a while. That's when i noticed the big CHE being so hot.
 

jaizei

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I'm pretty sure I've measured temperature significantly hotter on CHE, like 700F+, so it doesnt seem that abnormal.
 

ZEROPILOT

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Interesting.
I have a single 60 watt CHE inside of my night houses. They're roughly 9 square feet each and they stay toasty inside.
Anything that hot is a serious fire hazard. Something NOT to be used with a clamp lamp fixture.
 

Gijoux

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Was it on a thermostat?

I remember using an infrared temp gun right on the surface of the CHE and seeing a reading of around 375 F a few years ago. Those things get HOT.
I actually burned a beautiful slab of Granite when I accidentally laid a Dome fixture with a CHE from my bird cage onto the Granite. I hadn't turned it off properly. After a few hours it burned the granite permanently. Ugh!
 

Tom

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Does this seem normal?

Yes. As Mark and Yvonne explained. That is normal temp for a CHE and that is why we always tell people to only use ceramic based fixtures. They run hot. A little 50 watt one will have to run all the time to keep up the heat. A larger one would do a much better job and not have to run all the time. Since it is thermostat controlled, it won't overheat the enclosure.
 
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