Troubleshooting my nightbox heat

[tortlover73]

@Tom

Hey. Tonight when I went to close Koopas house I realized the heat was off . Pig blanket off. Overhead heat panel off. Space heater all off. House temp was at 69 which is cooler than it normally is. I crawled in at night. The green thermostat light was on. I tried to turn it up so they would go on. Nothing. I have to assume the thermostat is not faulty if the green light is on right?

I have the radiant heat panel and the Kane mat and the lil oil heater all
Plugged into the thermostat. Do you have any idea why everything is off. Suggestions? Her house door is closed and tonight won’t be too terribly cold out there with the insulated walls in your plan.

We did have the power go out earlier today due to a neighborhood outage but it came back up pretty quick. I did check all the gfi outlets to make sure none tripped and have also checked the breaker box in the garage but they were fine. Picture for cuteness

 

[wellington]

What are the watts of all three and then the watt the thermostat can take?
Where is the temp probe? It should be away from the heat sources. Put it on the opposite side of the heat sources.
Temps should not be below 80 so keep him someplace warm until it's figured out.

 

[Tom]

@Tom

Hey. Tonight when I went to close Koopas house I realized the heat was off . Pig blanket off. Overhead heat panel off. Space heater all off. House temp was at 69 which is cooler than it normally is. I crawled in at night. The green thermostat light was on. I tried to turn it up so they would go on. Nothing. I have to assume the thermostat is not faulty if the green light is on right?

I have the radiant heat panel and the Kane mat and the lil oil heater all
Plugged into the thermostat. Do you have any idea why everything is off. Suggestions? Her house door is closed and tonight won’t be too terribly cold out there with the insulated walls in your plan.

We did have the power go out earlier today due to a neighborhood outage but it came back up pretty quick. I did check all the gfi outlets to make sure none tripped and have also checked the breaker box in the garage but they were fine. Picture for cuteness

View attachment 381679

You have to go through and systematically check each thing.
1. Get a light fixture with an LED bulb, or some other device that lights up to indicate you have power.
2. Plug it directly into the wall or outlet where your thermostat is plugged into. If it lights up, move to the thermostat's plug. Does it light up?
3. Now go back and plug your heat mat directly into a receptacle that you have verified the power to. Give it a minute and see if it heats up. Do the same with the oil heater and the RHP. Verify each piece one at a time.

My suspicion would be that you blew the thermostat by running too many things on it at once. The cheap little $30 Amazon Chinese made thermostats really can't handle too much, even if they are rated for it. Plugging your LED test bulb into it while it should be on will verify or deny this.

There is no need to run all three of those heating elements. It's should be either the oil heater OR the RHP/Kane at combo. If you want to run all three, I would suggest two thermostats. One solely for your oil heater, and the other set slightly lower on your RHP/Kane mat to act as a redundant back up in case the oil heater or oil heater thermostat ever fails.

Also, I always keep a couple of extra thermostats on hand for these sorts of problems. They always seem to go out at the most inopportune times, and having one at the ready can save your tortoise from spending the night cold and getting sick. They aren't that expensive, and they are a heck of a lot cheaper than vet visits and medicine. If this ever happens again, you can just plug the heat mat in directly to give the tortoise some warmth over night. It has built in thermostats that will prevent it from over heating and it can't overheat the whole box by itself when night temps are in the 70s or lower outside.

Finally, it appears from the size of those gular scutes that she is a he. Post a picture of the anal scutes and tail and we can verify. Have someone hold the tortoise's back up against their torso with the tortoise's nose pointing toward the sky and you can get a good clear well-lit picture of the tail.

 

[tortlover73]

Yeah you were right. Which thermostat do you recommend and I’ll get that. I’ll be removing the heat pad. I’ll keep the oil heater and the radiant heater

 

[tortlover73]

What are the watts of all three and then the watt the thermostat can take?
Where is the temp probe? It should be away from the heat sources. Put it on the opposite side of the heat sources.
Temps should not be below 80 so keep him someplace warm until it's figured out.

I’ll look those up. I do have the heat prob on the opposite side. I’ll try and get pics of the underside. I really think koopa is a girl. Tiny tail. Flat bottom shell. She’s 50 pounds so I think we should be able to tell now but I’ll post a pic

 

[tortlover73]

You have to go through and systematically check each thing.
1. Get a light fixture with an LED bulb, or some other device that lights up to indicate you have power.
2. Plug it directly into the wall or outlet where your thermostat is plugged into. If it lights up, move to the thermostat's plug. Does it light up?
3. Now go back and plug your heat mat directly into a receptacle that you have verified the power to. Give it a minute and see if it heats up. Do the same with the oil heater and the RHP. Verify each piece one at a time.

My suspicion would be that you blew the thermostat by running too many things on it at once. The cheap little $30 Amazon Chinese made thermostats really can't handle too much, even if they are rated for it. Plugging your LED test bulb into it while it should be on will verify or deny this.

There is no need to run all three of those heating elements. It's should be either the oil heater OR the RHP/Kane at combo. If you want to run all three, I would suggest two thermostats. One solely for your oil heater, and the other set slightly lower on your RHP/Kane mat to act as a redundant back up in case the oil heater or oil heater thermostat ever fails.

Also, I always keep a couple of extra thermostats on hand for these sorts of problems. They always seem to go out at the most inopportune times, and having one at the ready can save your tortoise from spending the night cold and getting sick. They aren't that expensive, and they are a heck of a lot cheaper than vet visits and medicine. If this ever happens again, you can just plug the heat mat in directly to give the tortoise some warmth over night. It has built in thermostats that will prevent it from over heating and it can't overheat the whole box by itself when night temps are in the 70s or lower outside.

Finally, it appears from the size of those gular scutes that she is a he. Post a picture of the anal scutes and tail and we can verify. Have someone hold the tortoise's back up against their torso with the tortoise's nose pointing toward the sky and you can get a good clear well-lit picture of the tail.

 

[tortlover73]

You have to go through and systematically check each thing.
1. Get a light fixture with an LED bulb, or some other device that lights up to indicate you have power.
2. Plug it directly into the wall or outlet where your thermostat is plugged into. If it lights up, move to the thermostat's plug. Does it light up?
3. Now go back and plug your heat mat directly into a receptacle that you have verified the power to. Give it a minute and see if it heats up. Do the same with the oil heater and the RHP. Verify each piece one at a time.

My suspicion would be that you blew the thermostat by running too many things on it at once. The cheap little $30 Amazon Chinese made thermostats really can't handle too much, even if they are rated for it. Plugging your LED test bulb into it while it should be on will verify or deny this.

There is no need to run all three of those heating elements. It's should be either the oil heater OR the RHP/Kane at combo. If you want to run all three, I would suggest two thermostats. One solely for your oil heater, and the other set slightly lower on your RHP/Kane mat to act as a redundant back up in case the oil heater or oil heater thermostat ever fails.

Also, I always keep a couple of extra thermostats on hand for these sorts of problems. They always seem to go out at the most inopportune times, and having one at the ready can save your tortoise from spending the night cold and getting sick. They aren't that expensive, and they are a heck of a lot cheaper than vet visits and medicine. If this ever happens again, you can just plug the heat mat in directly to give the tortoise some warmth over night. It has built in thermostats that will prevent it from over heating and it can't overheat the whole box by itself when night temps are in the 70s or lower outside.

Finally, it appears from the size of those gular scutes that she is a he. Post a picture of the anal scutes and tail and we can verify. Have someone hold the tortoise's back up against their torso with the tortoise's nose pointing toward the sky and you can get a good clear well-lit picture of the tail.

Tried to hold and have my mom take a pic but she wasn’t able to. Is this helpful

 

[wellington]

Yeah you were right. Which thermostat do you recommend and I’ll get that. I’ll be removing the heat pad. I’ll keep the oil heater and the radiant heater

I think Tom meant not to have all three on one thermostat. Having the heat mat and RHP, one above the other is fine on one thermostat and the radiator on its own thermostat.
Or just using the radiator should be enough.
Just always be sure the thermostat can handle the watts of the heating element.
My radiator is 1500 watt at full temp. So my thermostat has to handle at least 1500 watts.

 

[Tom]

Tried to hold and have my mom take a pic but she wasn’t able to. Is this helpful
View attachment 381707

I can't see the tail, but the anal scutes do look female-ish, and the gulars are smaller and more normal looking from this angle too. I can't see the tail though. Its hidden in this picture.

Male tail:



Female tail:

Yeah you were right. Which thermostat do you recommend and I’ll get that. I’ll be removing the heat pad. I’ll keep the oil heater and the radiant heater

I just buy whatever thermostat is on Amazon when I need one. They change over time. I thin the current most common one is BN Link. I would buy three of them. One for your oil heater. One for your RHP/Kane mat, and one extra to have around in case one of the other fails.

No need to remove the heat mat. The RHP isn't effective on its own. I'd keep both.

 

[tortlover73]

Ok she definitely is a girl based on your pics. Thanks. I ordered three thermostats for the nightbox. Since each one takes one thing, do I need to run two extension cords?

 

[Tom]

Ok she definitely is a girl based on your pics. Thanks. I ordered three thermostats for the nightbox. Since each one takes one thing, do I need to run two extension cords?

Assuming you have a normal household 15amp circuit with nothing else running on it, and you use a heavy duty 12 guage extension cord, on cord should do it. No harm in running two cords if you wanted to. Your heat mat and RHP can both run on the same thermostat, and your oil heater on its own thermostat. Keep the third one handy as a spare.

 

[tortlover73]

Assuming you have a normal household 15amp circuit with nothing else running on it, and you use a heavy duty 12 guage extension cord, on cord should do it. No harm in running two cords if you wanted to. Your heat mat and RHP can both run on the same thermostat, and your oil heater on its own thermostat. Keep the third one handy as a spare.

The thermostats I got only have one plug in. Maybe I bought the wrong ones

 

[Tom]

The thermostats I got only have one plug in. Maybe I bought the wrong ones

That's okay. They make little plug in splitters that give you more outlets. You can also use a six strip outlet plugged into your thermostat, but don't over do the wattage. A RHP usually uses around 80 watts and a 28x18 inch heat mat also uses about 80 watts for a total of 160 watts. Your thermostat is likely rated to 1000 watts, so this should be fine. Check the wattage of the "appliances" you are plugging in and check the wattage your thermostat is rated for.

 

[tortlover73]

That's okay. They make little plug in splitters that give you more outlets. You can also use a six strip outlet plugged into your thermostat, but don't over do the wattage. A RHP usually uses around 80 watts and a 28x18 inch heat mat also uses about 80 watts for a total of 160 watts. Your thermostat is likely rated to 1000 watts, so this should be fine. Check the wattage of the "appliances" you are plugging in and check the wattage your thermostat is rated for.

Would it be something like this? Or I can return the two I haven’t opened and get a different one. It’s now 34 degrees in Denver so it’s not an urgent fix. She’s in my house now.

 

[Markw84]

Would it be something like this? Or I can return the two I haven’t opened and get a different one. It’s now 34 degrees in Denver so it’s not an urgent fix. She’s in my house now. View attachment 382049

Yes. That will work just fine for plugging both into the thermostat.

 

[Tom]

Would it be something like this? Or I can return the two I haven’t opened and get a different one. It’s now 34 degrees in Denver so it’s not an urgent fix. She’s in my house now. View attachment 382049

That is only 16 gauge wire. It will be fine for the RHP and Kane Mat, as those are both fairly low wattage. I prefer to use12 gauge wire for anything to do with the oil heaters. Technically the 16 gauge should be fine with either, but I prefer to be extra cautious.