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Wiring the Heat TapeI'll just start by saying:This is how I wire up my heat tape. This goes against the manufacturer's recommended method and IF you choose to follow my instructions, you are doing so at your OWN risk. Now that I have said that, here is what I do and I feel pretty safe doing it this way. :-) Here are the materials I use: A pre-stripped lamp chord, electrical tape, foil tape, ring terminals, scissors and a crimping tool. I recently discovered that it is cheaper to just buy a cheap extension cord and cut off the female end. It almost works out to be 50% cheaper. :-)  I start by covering all of the exposed copper with electrical tape.  Then I get set to crimp a ring terminal on each stripped end of the wire.  I also stagger the lengths of each wire so that all of my wiring comes out at the back of the rack instead of the side. That's just a personal preference though. :-)  After that, I screw a metal screw through the ring terminal and through the copper strip on the heat tape. That is your connection point.  Because the screw-head is "live", you will need to cover it or insulated it with a non-conductive material. I use electrical tape but I have also used silicone and hot glue.  Now that it is all wired up and ready to go, the last thing I do is make sure the heat tape is secured to the shelf with some foil tape.  Now the heat tape is all connected and FLAT against the board.  This is how much of the bin is above the heat tape once the bins are slid right back on their rails. It's a few inches less than half of the floor space. That does seem like a lot of "heat area" to me and next time I might use two strips of 4" tape instead but that's all part of the learning curve! :D I only slide the bins in enough to be flush with the front end of the shlef. That also off sets the amount of floor space that is heated.  And that's how I wire up my heat tape. I've used a few other methods that work well too and I'll add them to this page later on. :-) |