danemayer
Well-known member
Tank heaters are generally 110V and would only be hooked to an inverter if you had made that modification. You could check your circuit breaker panel to see if you've got a 110V breaker labeled "tank htrs" or something like that. If you find that breaker, they're 110V.
There is a 12V version of the tank heater pads, but I'm not sure if Heartland ever used them. The 12V tank heaters for 45 gallon tanks draw around 12 amps each, so if you had the 12V version, you'd probably have multiple fuses in the 12V fusebox and your switch would probably be wired to control a relay that turned them all on, rather than running 48 amps through a small switch.
On the heat tape side, if your small rocker switch has a light, there would probably be 3 wires to the switch rather than 2. Two of the wires would be just like on a switch with no light - makes and breaks the 12V to the heat tape. The third wire is a ground attached to one side of the lamp. When the switch is on, the power going to the heat tape also goes to the lamp. The ground wire completes the lamp circuit allowing it to illuminate.
There is a mis-wiring scenario for an illuminated rocker switch that would route continuous power through the LED to the heat tape. But I'd be really surprised if the LED could pass the current used by the heat tape without being destroyed quickly. LEDs probably draw milliamps (thousanths of an amp). If you tried to run 10 amps through an LED, the LED would probably melt in the first second, opening the circuit just like having too small a fuse in the circuit. For the mis-wiring scenario to account for your damage, you'd have to postulate 1st the factory mis-wiring, and 2nd that the LED melted in such a way as to short the circuit so as to pass 10 amps.
I'm not an electrical engineer, but this seems unlikely to me. But maybe we have an electrical engineer who can comment on the likelihood of a burned out LED conducting 10 amps.
Something else to consider about the heat tape. Assuming it's Ultraheat - their website cautions against running the heat tape with no water in the lines, but describes the consequences as "softening" of the water line material. That raises a question of how it could cause the damage you've experienced. You might want to call Annod Industries at 574-970-4696 and ask their opinion about 1) whether they think a mis-wired switch could have caused the problem, and 2) why you had so much damage.
There is a 12V version of the tank heater pads, but I'm not sure if Heartland ever used them. The 12V tank heaters for 45 gallon tanks draw around 12 amps each, so if you had the 12V version, you'd probably have multiple fuses in the 12V fusebox and your switch would probably be wired to control a relay that turned them all on, rather than running 48 amps through a small switch.
On the heat tape side, if your small rocker switch has a light, there would probably be 3 wires to the switch rather than 2. Two of the wires would be just like on a switch with no light - makes and breaks the 12V to the heat tape. The third wire is a ground attached to one side of the lamp. When the switch is on, the power going to the heat tape also goes to the lamp. The ground wire completes the lamp circuit allowing it to illuminate.
There is a mis-wiring scenario for an illuminated rocker switch that would route continuous power through the LED to the heat tape. But I'd be really surprised if the LED could pass the current used by the heat tape without being destroyed quickly. LEDs probably draw milliamps (thousanths of an amp). If you tried to run 10 amps through an LED, the LED would probably melt in the first second, opening the circuit just like having too small a fuse in the circuit. For the mis-wiring scenario to account for your damage, you'd have to postulate 1st the factory mis-wiring, and 2nd that the LED melted in such a way as to short the circuit so as to pass 10 amps.
I'm not an electrical engineer, but this seems unlikely to me. But maybe we have an electrical engineer who can comment on the likelihood of a burned out LED conducting 10 amps.
Something else to consider about the heat tape. Assuming it's Ultraheat - their website cautions against running the heat tape with no water in the lines, but describes the consequences as "softening" of the water line material. That raises a question of how it could cause the damage you've experienced. You might want to call Annod Industries at 574-970-4696 and ask their opinion about 1) whether they think a mis-wired switch could have caused the problem, and 2) why you had so much damage.