Hey guys, new member...

[jasonm96]

I can understand it's not nice and I'm sorry to hear but this not the mats fault but rather the use of it and unfortunately some of the instructions that come with the mats are not in depth enough to prevent this... at least some mats provide good instructions and forums come in handy for discussing their use. You're right with the thermal gradients and heat mats can make these but not the same as a heat lamp or ceramic, they only create a hot spot, which must be controlled by a thermostat. So you keep the species at the room temp suitable for the cool end or apply additional overhead heat sources to warm the air and cool end and then the mat is used to create a warm spot. If you were using a heater that warms the ambient air as well, then you can move the thermostat probe to the middle or cool end, depending on what you wish to control but mats must be controlled directly. I prefer to buy the mats that don't have adhesive and they're the carbon clothes ones, which as far as I know have never malfunctioned but the printed ones have. I've stopped using mats for these reasons and much prefer overhead heating.

Anyway, yes let's focus on that. Haha!