saximus
Almost Legendary
I finally finished this off yesterday and I thought it might be nice to share. It’s nothing special but it’s been a veeery long time in the making because I bought the racking and all of the melamine months ago and then got busy/lazy and never actually started it. Since yesterday and Monday were my last days of holidays I figured it would be time to get stuck into it.
The racking is from Bunnings and, with evenly spaces shelves, each enclosure is about 1200mm x 600mm x 450mm (4’ x 2’ x 1.5’). This fits the new NSW regulations for any snake other than Olives and Scrubbys, though I’d be hesitant to put a large climber in them with that height. The rack made it slightly less cost effective than just using melamine but it’s much sturdier and it made it very simple to get nice straight lines.
The way the shelf rails are shaped meant it would have been tricky to glue the top glass tracks on so I used aluminium angle and riveted it. I’ve always found gluing them to be a pain in the butt anyway so I’m really happy with this and I know it will never come unstuck over the years. The bottom tracks are also fastened using tiny tack nails (thank you to members of this forum for that idea).
After a little bit of experience with the Proherp heat panels, I’ve found that they actually produce a reasonable amount of heat upwards as well. I’ve used this to my advantage here so I only need two for all four enclosures. I don’t have the glass yet but I tested them without thermostats and the surface temperatures from top to bottom at each basking spot were 39°C, 37°C, 35°C and 35°C. I thought it was interesting that there was such a difference at the top two. Obviously heat rises but I didn’t expect the single heat emitter below to affect the upper one so much. I’ll have to take that into consideration if I decide to use a single thermostat for the whole rack.
Final cost once the glass doors are made is expected to be about $350-400 (excluding heat panels). So a little more expensive than I would have liked but that is still not bad considering professional ones are about that for a single enclosure.
Like I said, I know it’s nothing special but if anyone would like to see pictures of any particular parts, I’ll be happy to take some this afternoon.
Dan
The racking is from Bunnings and, with evenly spaces shelves, each enclosure is about 1200mm x 600mm x 450mm (4’ x 2’ x 1.5’). This fits the new NSW regulations for any snake other than Olives and Scrubbys, though I’d be hesitant to put a large climber in them with that height. The rack made it slightly less cost effective than just using melamine but it’s much sturdier and it made it very simple to get nice straight lines.
The way the shelf rails are shaped meant it would have been tricky to glue the top glass tracks on so I used aluminium angle and riveted it. I’ve always found gluing them to be a pain in the butt anyway so I’m really happy with this and I know it will never come unstuck over the years. The bottom tracks are also fastened using tiny tack nails (thank you to members of this forum for that idea).
After a little bit of experience with the Proherp heat panels, I’ve found that they actually produce a reasonable amount of heat upwards as well. I’ve used this to my advantage here so I only need two for all four enclosures. I don’t have the glass yet but I tested them without thermostats and the surface temperatures from top to bottom at each basking spot were 39°C, 37°C, 35°C and 35°C. I thought it was interesting that there was such a difference at the top two. Obviously heat rises but I didn’t expect the single heat emitter below to affect the upper one so much. I’ll have to take that into consideration if I decide to use a single thermostat for the whole rack.
Final cost once the glass doors are made is expected to be about $350-400 (excluding heat panels). So a little more expensive than I would have liked but that is still not bad considering professional ones are about that for a single enclosure.
Like I said, I know it’s nothing special but if anyone would like to see pictures of any particular parts, I’ll be happy to take some this afternoon.
Dan
