Cagemakers Discussion

[liquidleaf]

I have used indoor/outdoor rope lighting in some of my prebuilt plastic cages with good results.

Rope lights are lengths of clear vinyl rope that have small light bulbs embedded in the center. The light bulbs are connected by two (sometimes three) small wires that are also embedded in the vinyl. They typically come in diameters of 1/2" up to 3/4", though I used the 1/2" variety.

Rope lights can be cut to the size you need, but you have to be careful - some rope lights can be cut in 1 foot increments, but others can only be cut in 18" increments or 24" increments. The way you can tell is by carefully looking at the wires and light bulbs within the rope. If you look carefully, each light bulb is link to the next in the chain by small wires (not the main thicker 'power' wires). At the end of a section, you will NOT see those small wires connecting the last bulb to the first bulb in the next section. Sometimes rope lights are conveniently marked where cutting is possible, but if not, with some careful examination, you can tell where to cut.

Once you have found a gap between sections, you can cut the rope light with a pair of heavy-duty scissors or a razor knife. Make sure the light is UNPLUGGED when you do this, or you'll get a fun zap.

If you make a mistake and accidentally cut in between a section of lights, that whole section (foot, 18 inches, or 2 feet) will go dark. At least in that case, you will be able to examine where the dark section ends and the next lighted one begins.

Rope lights typically come with small clear plastic clips that can be used to attach the rope lights to a surface. I tried hot-gluing these clips to the top of my Vision cage, which worked for a while, but hot glue doesn't stick well to that type of plastic and soon they detached from the cage ceiling. So if you want to use the clips that come with the lights, use superglue or another industrial adhesive (such as E-6000) or silicone, and leave plenty of time for the glue or silicone to cure and air out.

To run the lights into the cage, simply drill a hole into the cage slightly larger than the diameter of the rope light. Some rope lights have a hard plastic end that may be larger than the rope light's diameter - the ones I bought did. What I did was trim that end plug off and covered the exposed end of the rope light with some silicone to prevent water from entering. Then, string the light through the hole, into the cage.

You can also attach rope lights to the top of a cage with plastic zip-ties (or tie-wraps). Drill two small holes that the tie-wrap will fit through at each location you want to attach the light. Then thread the tie wrap through the holes (from the inside to the outside of the cage, and then back inside), put the ropelight between the ends of the tie wrap, and zip the tiewrap.

Rope lights get warm but typically not very hot, so they can help with cage heat. They are also weatherproof (especially the outdoor variety) as long as you reseal any place you have cut the ropelight.

They also provide a nice indirect sort of lighting and can be used in conjunction with a dimmer. In one cage, I ran the rope light around the door frame of a cage - you cannot see the rope light, but the indirect lighting it provides into the cage looks like a very nice display. Rope lights are also available in several colors - though I'm not certain that the red or blue varieties produce light that is 'invisible' to reptiles the way certain red and blue incandescent lights are, since it's colored plastic the light is coming through.

[sirusscott]

any pictures?