Help with Snake Rack

Good morning,

Please help I have a snake rack running on a Ranco temperature controlling with heating wire attached. Right now it is not heating up but it was running about one year ago. The controller is set but it is not heating up the rack. Would anyone know what I am doing wrong? Like I said it was running good before just don't know what the issue would be.


Thank you

Any1?

a couple things, plug the heat into the wall for a few minutes to see if it gets warm, plug a lightbulb/lamp into the thermostat to verify it is supplying power.

Hi Casey,

I am plugging the heating wire into an outlet. I am not reading anything. I tried to plug the Ranco and see if it is working but the Ranco turn itself off once I unplug the heating wire from it. Do you think I need to get a new heat wire or do you think I will need a new Ranco?

I tried to plug the Ranco and see if it is working but the Ranco turn itself off once I unplug the heating wire from it.

I am not sure what you mean. can you tell if the ranco is working? do you know how it works? Do you have the instructions that came with it?
The ranco could be set to cool, the ranco display should not turn off when you unplug it, are you sure you have a ranco? the hysteresis (sp?) could be set too high etc...
plug a lamp into the ranco, raise the set point to 100, and slowly move the probe to the light, the light should turn out when the display says 101.
Is the heat cable hot yet?

I kind of know how it works. I've set the Ranco to F temp set to 97 and with a fluctuation of 4 finally I set it to H1. The Ranco is plugged to an outlet and the heating wire is connected to the Ranco. It temperature I noticed did not changed and was steady at 70 degrees. I've unplugged the heating wire and plug it straight to the socket and see if it is working and try to plug a lighting fixture to the Ranco. However once I unplug the heating wire from the Ranco the LCD goes blank. I am still waiting as of now to see if the heating wire is still working.

Monkey around with it today. the ranco display should NOT go out as long as it is plugged in and receiving current, that would indicate the ranco is the problem. the heat tape should get hot as soon as you plug it into the wall, if not, that means the heat is also a problem. If you still need help, I can send you my phone # this p.m. and we can see if we can figure it out. I will be out all day. Good luck.