I found GE 250W incandescent heat lamps at Walmart for pretty cheap. They’re clear bulb, not the red ones for chickens. If my thermostat is dimming and rated up to 700W, any reason not to use one of these? I’ve got UV and bright white LED lighting already, just looking to get something with better heat output than my 80W Arcadia DHP.
A 250w is pretty powerful. I've tried out a similar one and found that it was forced to dim too much to be very useful unless it was set 3+feet above the temperature probe. I was also worried that if the temp probe got knocked out of place, the bulb would severely overheat the enclosure. For this reason, I prefer to get the temps lined up using height adjustments and wattage changes, then introduce the dimmer to automate fine tuning. I've had better luck using the 125w BR40 Westinghouse brand. I pick them up at Ace hardware.
Yeah, I didn’t think about the thermostat malfunctioning. My probe gets knocked off the basking spot all the time. I planned on gluing it there, but still. I’ll check out Ace hardware