Completion!

The correct drill arrived today, they kept me waiting until 6:23pm though. This meant that finally everything should be ready for me to get Milo in to his new home! Ceramic bulb and guard where screwed in, thermostat cables were tacked in place and the bulb was switched on. Now a ceramic bulb heats through radiation rather than the heat mat that heated through conduction. This means that the bulb needs to heat to a temperature that will be hot enough to heat the surrounding air to 33'C at a distance of about 10 inches. I knew I needed a guard for the bulb but out of interest I pointed the temperature gun at the hottest part of the bulb. I nearly died when I read the screen, during the initial heat up, the surface of the bulb was 226'C, now that it's up to temperature and the thermostat has kicked in, it maintains a temperature of 156'C. Surprisingly though, the guard just an inch and a half away is only about 37'C.

So with it all set up I thought there could be no more problems, then I tried to put Milo in the viv. He'd had play sessions exploring it without the heat on whilst I waited for everything to be ready. He'd enjoyed it and had no problems. Now though, I was trying to move him from 33'C hot spot of belly heat with a cold end/ambient air temp of around 18/20'C to 33'c radiant heat and a general/cool temp of 26'c. He did not like this. As soon as he got his head past the glass and in to the warmth he pulled his head back and got hissy. I tried putting him in from the cool end but again, as soon as he got near the heat, he really wasn't happy. In the end I've had to turn the heat down low and slowly I'll build it up as he acclimatises to it.

I didn't want to disturb his exploring by using the flash so instead today you get a poor shot of my new electric screwdriver.