Arcadia's Deep heat Projector bulb

[Claudiusx]

Link here: Deep heat projector

At first I passed this bulb off as another marketing scheme, but looking deeper into it, and pondering it for a bit really has me thinking.

Firstly, if you read through arcadia's page on the bulb, they do a good job of making the bulb sound impressive, and making it sound like this bulb does things that other bulbs can't, or dont. While some of this is true, not all of it is true. What it appears to do though, is do everything better.

Here is a chart they provide in regards to how deep certain forms of IR energy can penetrate:

The sun provides our world and its inhabitants with heat through the terrestrial wavelengths of light termed as ‘Infra-Red-A’ and ‘Infra-Red-B’ but not directly with Infra-Red-C which is filtered out by the atmosphere. The terrestrial wavelengths of light are full of energy as the photons of light travel down into our world. They are then available directly into an animal’s dermis where they will deliver energy naturally, we term this as being ‘bio-available’.

I put it off at first because it really doesn't provide anything that our regular basking bulbs can't also. But, while I believe a lot of what arcadia wrote in their description for this bulb is mainly fluff, or slightly misleading (only in the sense that they make it sound like regular bulbs can't do this too), I also believe their are some nice benefits that this bulb could provide.

Firstly, it seems like a really efficient bulb for producing heat. According to Arcadia, these are the temperatures it produces at different distances:

A 50w would be suitable for almost every situation. That's not that big of a sale point, but it would save some people who are using 150w bulbs money.

Secondly, and this is what I am liking the best, it emits no light. At least not any visible light (not visible to humans OR dragons, unlike some other petstore night bulbs). Why is this a benefit? Well, if it were to be hooked up to a thermostat or a timer, it could be set to run at one temperature during the day, and then throttled down at night to provide slight ambient heat. It would replace the need for owners who use CHE's at night.

Arcadia, mentions that it should be used with a dimmer, so there should be no longevity issues or noise issues with dimming it like some bulbs have.

I still believe a light should be used over the basking surface, but it would be for lighting only. An LED bulb could be used to keep energy consumption low, and still provide a beam of light over the basking area.

I will be trying to get my hands on one, and test it out and see how it goes.
Thoughts, ideas, comments welcome.

-Brandon

 

[CooperDragon]

I've been using the Megaray version of this for years now. It's excellent. I have one in my main enclosure set on an on/off setting on the thermostat so it just kicks on as needed. It has handled this very well and lasted a long time. I use another one over my roach colony to keep their (cardboard tube) housing warm. It seems to penetrate the cardboard with warmth very well. There is no visible light emitted and it is not nearly as much of a burn risk than a CHE since it runs so much more cool. There is a ceramic piece in the center that glows slightly orange when it heats up, but you have to look directly at it to notice.

 

[Claudiusx]

Oh interesting I didn't know Megaray had a version of this. Im going to have to look it up.

-Brandon

 

[CooperDragon]

http://www.reptileuv.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=196

 

[Claudiusx]

Thank you, couldn't find it on amazon. That's a good price. Maybe I will try both as a side by side....

Do you have temperature fall off measurements like you did for the zoomed?

-Brandon

 

[CooperDragon]

I don't but I can measure them easily enough. The projector does tend to send everything downward. The shell doesn't get much more than warm to the touch. It does provide intense warmth directly under the bulb while creating a gradient to the sides. It is enough to keep temps up (even on the other side of the tank) overnight, but I haven't thought of it in terms of basking so I haven't really applied my rule of basking temps diameter the length of a dragon.

 

[Claudiusx]

If you don't mind and get time, it would be interesting to see, at least since I am potentially considering it for that lol.

-Brandon