Heatmats and Plastic Boxes?

[KarlW]

Hi guys,

Ive got myself some heatmats and plastic boxes to breed my new roaches, but my big concern - will a heatmat strong enough to raise the temperature in the box actually melt the bottom of it?

Karl

[serpentsupplies]

what type of boxes have you got?

[Meko]

it'll take a lot to melt a plastic tub.
water boils at 100c and heat needed for leos / snakes / etc is around 33c so i'm guessing it'll be the same for roaches. So the heat you'll be putting on the box is roughly the same as pouring a warm cup of tea in there.

[KarlW]

Thanks Meko.

I didnt look at it like that.

So i should be fine.

Its just a standard storage box, so obviously i didnt want the bottom melting and all of my roaches escaping.


Karl

[haunted-havoc]

storage boxes are generally made of polyethylene, and polyethylenes melting point is around 120-130C so unless your cooking them, there shouldnt be a problem lol

[Jim2109]

melting isnt so relevant as deforming though. plastic deforms at lower temperatures than it melts. but heat mats dont get that hot (hence why they are generally fairly poor at heating air), so they will be fine. iirc the surface temperature on mine when i checked it once didnt get above 45°C.

in my current setup i have heat mats under a glass aquarium running off a stat. the stat probe is positioned on top of the heat mats, under the aquarium (because roaches climb the wires and escape if i run it inside). the air temp inside the aquarium is 30°C, and the stat is only set at about 36°C to achieve this. so in other words, the heat mats cant be getting much hotter than 36°C! your breath is hotter than that.