Horizontal mounting of spotlight

[munnik]

Has anybody ever mounted a spot light horizontally in a cage? In other words, on the side of the cage so that it shines, say, from the cold side to the warm side.

The reason i am asking is that I got 175W IR spots for R60 and want to build a "compartment" on the top of the cage to house the lighting etc. The problem is that the bulb has a height of 15cm and the "compartment" will be about 20cm. I have tested the bulb and at 5cm from the actual bulb it is too hot, the snake will definitely burn if he comes close to the light. I don't want use it to create a hot spot (shine down on a specific location) as i will use pads for that, but rather to provide ambient heat.

As mentioned in another post, the cage will be 2m x 1m x 0.6m. The pieces i wanted to use for the side of the cage can be cut up to 1.22m which is where I got the 20cm height for the "compartment". It's for a Red Tail.

The options as I see it are:
- Increase the height of the "compartment" section of the cage (and reduce the 1m height of the cage)
- Use a dimmer (tried this in the past and battled to find dimmers, also think that 175W will be needed for the size cage mentioned above)
- Mount the bulb so it shines horizontally

Any help?

Andrew